Friday January 1 - A new dawn ?

With 2020 finally out of the way I was up early and planning to start the new year before it got light. Well that was the plan. In the event I overslept and arrived at 08.00. 

The landscape looked pretty bleak, the weather managing to combine a hard frost and heavy cloud which for the first two hours was low enough for an annoying light drizzle. 

Cold and unappealing

My first bird of the day was a Blackbird, and I went on to log a total of 54 species before dusk. The total is only of any significance if you compete against previous years' efforts, which I do. 52 last year, but 58 the year before.

The best record in that first hour was a fly-over Siskin, but only because it was the only one all day. A little while later the first Peregrine of the year was spotted on one of the pylons.

Peregrine

I would later see it again at dusk. The rest of the morning was spent seeking out birds which should be present, with mixed success. A Tawny Owl in the usual place was not to be the only one I saw today, and a stomp through the marsh added nine Snipe but no Jack Snipe (which was disappointing).

All the shallow pools were frozen solid so waterfowl were virtually absent; a few fly-over Mallard, Canada Geese, and Greylag Geese, plus a couple of Moorhens was all I could manage. Similarly, just one gull, a Lesser Black-backed made it onto the list.

After a single Stonechat in the morning, I found two more during the afternoon. Occasional Yellowhammers flew over, but I saw only three Lesser Redpolls all day. By late morning the sun made an appearance and a pair of Sparrowhawks responded by circling over Bannams Wood. My last bird before midday was a Greenfinch at Netherstead. 

Having headed home for lunch, my return an hour later was greeted by more cloud and light drizzle and a slightly keener north-westerly breeze. A pair of Nuthatches at 13.32 brought the total to 51. 

It's rare to see other birders at Morton Bagot. During the morning I had chatted to HOEF volunteer Dave Rawlings and his wife. Dave R was very knowledgable about the local area, but admitted he wasn't a birder. However, early in the afternoon I bumped into Neil Duggan (who is definitely a birder), and he had seen a bird I needed for the day. A Brambling had been perched in a small tree at the south end weedy field, and he also directed me to where he had seen a Tawny Owl which was not the one I usually see.

Well I saw the owl. I would propose that there is a Patchworkers Law which states "if you spend the whole day at your patch trying to get a big list and another birder is on site, he/she will always see something you miss".

The weedy field at the south end was pretty disappointing. All the Redpolls have gone, and I didn't see much else there. However, 10 Reed Buntings in the hedge bordering the Ring Ouzel field was a good count by recent standards.

My 52nd tick was rather mundane. Six Red-legged Partridges flew from the field below Bannams Wood at 14.48. 

Back at the car, my final plan was to drive to the church and give the flash field one last look. The walk down through the huge pasture field added more Starlings and Redwings to the day's total; 274 of the former, and 160 of the latter. My 53rd bird was found for me by a bunch of Chaffinches. They were going potty in the hedge, and turned out to be mobbing a Little Owl. Thanks guys.

The last bird was my best. At 16.08 a Barn Owl was flying along a hedge towards me until it saw me and did an abrupt right turn. By the time I got my camera out it reappeared and I managed a very brief snatch of film in the gloom.

It would have been longer but I made the classic mistake (again) of trying to zoom in. This resulted in a larger but more blurred image, which I have edited out.

I didn't see one here last year for the simple reason that I tended not to visit either early or late. Plenty of other people told me that Barn Owl had been regular throughout the year.

Let's hope that 2021 is a whole lot better than 2020.