Saturday January 4 - Morton Bagot

 My first visit to the patch this year was in some ways a triumph, and in others frustrating. I had switched from Sunday after seeing the weather forecast, although it seems by no means certain that tomorrow will be unbirdable.

Morton Bagot was frozen solid as expected. The ringers were on site but had chosen a different spot, so I found myself alone with no one in view when the bird of the day (or annoyance of the day) flew over. I had been alerted by an alarm call from a crow and looked up to see a largish accipiter flying above treetop height and directly across two fields to disappear into Bannams Wood. It had white undertail coverts which would make it an adult or at least sub-adult, but I didn't get much more on the plumage except to say it looked steely grey as it headed away. It felt enough like a Goshawk for me to count it as such after a period of deliberation. I think it must have been a male because it was not Buzzard sized.

I reached the ringers, but none of them had seen it. They reported having walked through the marsh for Snipe this morning, and had also seen a Barn Owl shortly after arriving. As I was chatting to Tony I heard a Stonechat call, but he told me they had put a tape on after seeing one in the chat field. It seems I had heard the tape and not the bird. 

After failing to locate the actual bird, a volley of gunshots opened up from the direction of Castle Farm, and presently several flocks of geese appeared and flew on. They were mostly Greylags. Several Mallard also appeared, but finding the flashes totally frozen, they carried on too. It was all a bit frustrating.

Some of the Greylags

A few easy year-ticks, Grey Heron and Ravens flew over, but I decided I might as well head back.

Back at the dragonfly pools I had a good idea. I decided to skirt the smaller pool where I had previously flushed a Jack Snipe, and sure enough one got up from under my feet, flipping back over the bank of the other pool where it disappeared, as they do.

It wasn't really a day for the camera, but I couldn't resist a perched Common Buzzard before I climbed into my car.

Thursday January 2 - New year, new resolutions

 Happy New Year everyone. On the first day of the year we woke up to heavy rain, which was a bit disappointing to say the least.

I have made a couple of resolutions which may seem contradictory. Firstly I intend to be more dedicated to exploring random tracts of land within ten kilometres of the house. Usually I start off quite well but as soon as spring arrives I cannot resist regular visits to watery sites like Morton Bagot, Earlswood, and Mappleborough Green Flash. I'll keep up weekly visits to Morton Bagot this year, but other birding will be more random. We'll see whether I can keep that up through the summer.

My second plan is to be a bit more relaxed about birding just beyond my self-imposed 10 km circle, extending it to 20 k just for twitching birds I'm unlikely to see in the core area. I still have care-related time constraints so it'll probably be a case of tick and run.

In fact I spent the afternoon of New Year's Day attempting just that. I went to Upper Bittell Reservoir, where a Caspian Gull had been seen a few days earlier. Unfortunately this was a case of dip and run because it didn't appear to be there. 

This morning I took myself off the Kemp's Green, an area of farmland between Umberslade and Ullenhall. The year list got a bit of a boost, but the species on offer were fairly modest. My best discoveries were a Golden Plover and a Yellowhammer, both of which were ticked audibly and not visually.

As it was sunny I was hoping to photograph something, but the only birds which came close enough were a small party of Long-tailed Tits.

Oh, one more thing. I've rejoined the world of social media by signing up to BlueSkySocial. My account currently has seven followers and no posts. Hopefully I'll eventually see something worth reporting.