It's been a fairly decent start to my 2014 birding year, with my year list now up to 84 species after three days birding. New Year's Day was, in keeping with recent years, fairly low key. Gone are the days when I used to post a big 1st Jan total with dawn to dusk birding. The kids take priority now, whilst red wine consumption on New Year's Eve makes for lethargy the following morning. A quiet wander around the village on the 1st produced good views of a Kingfisher on the river, plus Brambling, 3 Tree Sparrow and a male Bullfinch.
Back to work on Thursday and Friday, but with site visits in Leicestershire lined up for both days, the opportunity for tagging on some birding was good. On the way down to Leicestershire on Thursday I found myself at Burton Marsh (Cheshire) for dawn to successfully dip the Buff-bellied Pipit. Despite the absence of the pipit there was still plenty of good birding to be had, with highlights, at either Burton Marsh or nearby Parkgate, being a distant Great White Egret, 2 Siberian Chiffchaff (tristis), 2 Common Chiffchaff (collybita), a hardy Northern Wheatear, a total of 3 'ringtail' Hen Harrier and 4 Peregrine. Not bad for a few hours effort, before continuing south!
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| Car loads of pipit dippers! |
Friday was also a pretty good day. With my site visits sorted I had a burn around a couple of Leicestershire's finest reservoirs. First stop was Swithland Reservoir where the juvenile Black-throated Diver showed well just off the dam, whilst further out were 4 Scaup and 3 Goosander.
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| Black-throated Diver (juv). Swithland Reservoir (Leics). 3 January 2014. |
On to Eyebrook Reservoir where the female Ring-necked Duck continued to linger just off the fishing lodge. A brief, but fantastic, session at Eyebrook also produced 2 drake Smew, 2 Red Kite, a male Merlin and c.10 Tree Sparrow. Can't complain, especially when the day was then topped off with a perched Barn Owl in the car headlights as I drove back up the North Tyne Valley to home :)
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| Ring-necked Duck (female). Eyebrook Reservoir (Leics). 3 January 2014. |
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