Wednesday January 27 - Another long march to Morton Bagot

 The snow melted away overnight leaving largely green fields and mud to negotiate on my latest masochistic trudge to the patch. My thought process went something like this: It's been very wet, the ice should have gone, maybe today is the day I find a Med Gull at Morton Bagot.

I will gloss over the hour and a half it took to reach the hallowed ground, suffice to say it was grey and misty. The sight of a flock of gulls in the pasture to the west of the Morton Brook lifted my spirits, as did the presence of a Common Gull among the hundred or so Black-headed Gulls. I crossed the brook and looked back to see it was still there. Phew, I could count it! We may not get another until next year.

This sort of thing illustrates the nonsense that is Patch listing. Unfortunately I have totally bought into it, so yes, I would have been disappointed if it had flown off before I could have seen it from within my self-imposed patch boundary.

In fact by the time I reached the flash field it had joined a flock of Black-headed Gulls standing on ice which has still not melted yet. 

Common Gull 

For the record, I counted 232 Black-headed Gulls before noticing that the ice sheet had thawed at the edges allowing nine Teal, several Snipe, and 19 Lapwings to find places to lurk.

The back of the nearest flash, Teal and Snipe present but tricky to spot.

The Little Egret I saw at the weekend made a brief appearance, and I saw the first of five Stonechats discovered to be still present.

Little Egret

I decided to have another kick through the marsh by the Pool. This produced more Snipe which when added to those visible at the edge of the nearest flash made a grand total of 17. There were no Jack Snipe once again, but I did get a patch year tick as a Golden Plover called a couple of times from somewhere above me. 

Exiting the pool field I heard another bird I needed, a singing Mistle Thrush. The flutey notes were drifting over from the hamlet in the distance, but I couldn't see it. I did spot two more pairs on the walk back, and I'll leave you with a picture of one which visited our garden in the snow the day before yesterday.

Mistle Thrush

This is the least regular thrush species in our garden. It found the tasty mouldy apple impossible to resist and seemed to be top of the pecking order, keeping the normally belligerent Fieldfare off its prize.