We love to get out on New Year's Day to start a new bird count, but this year it's horrible weather, so we decide to wait until the second day before we go.
With the uncertain weather, we only head to Abberton as that is in Essex and only an hour away from home. We get some nice ticks the best being 4 Bewick's Swans, Scaup, Smew, Goosander, and a bonus tick when we sport the long-staying Canvasback.
Nice to see John P and we meet a new face who tells us about a place called Copthall we have never been there and he meets us there to show us where to head for the best views.
Just a small area to park the car we had to wait till someone moved.
We took a short walk around a field where we set the scopes up, it's not long before we saw a Short-eared Owl, it was perched on a bare bush. It took off to fly around the area to be joined by another Shortie to give us a real show always so nice to watch Owls.
Then a Merlin is seen sitting on a post always a good bird to spot. We are told that Hen Harrier is often seen here, we didn't stay that long so never saw any that's a shame.
A really nice place that we will go back to.
On the 3rd it's off to our local KGV reservoir where we tick a Black-throated Diver and a Great-northern Diver. As always nice to meet up with Harry.
On the 4th it's off to see Hawfinch at Bramfield church, we see 3 as soon as we arrive and get to see one feeding on the ground amongst the leaves, a Songthursh also seen. A bonus when here in the bus shelter across the road is filled with books to swap with over people so grabbed a couple for Jean and will bring some to replace next time up this way.
Just 14 miles away is a really lovely little nature reserve Watercress NR, so of course that's where we headed off to. Again not too many parking places as it sits just behind a small row of houses and residents rightly so fill most of the road.
In an hour or so we spent here we saw Redpoll, Siskin, Nuthatch, and Water Rail, and to round the trip off a beautiful male Bullfinch was seen flying around the bushes and then came to the feeders.
Total up till now 96 .
No comments:
Post a Comment