Five alive

After several visits with no patch year ticks, a viz miggin' session this morning came up trumps with five year ticks. Aside the torrents of Mipits and steady flow of Swallows there were several small parties of Siskins (nothing like numbers reported in recent days elsewhere in eastern Scotland), smaller parties of Redpolls and the expected Grey Wagtails. A Peregrine flew south too (not quite annual) and best of the lot was 3 Ruffs (well actually one ruff and two reeves) also heading southbound. Just one previous Ruff record here of a couple of birds in with the Lapwings for a couple of days in 2008.

Clearly other birds on the move too as jumping about for a few minutes in an isolated and, usually unproductive, willow clump next to the count position before moving on were a number of tits (4 Blue, 2 Great and a Coal), 3 Chiffhcaffs and singles of Willow Warbler, Goldcrest and Sedge Warbler.

So the year list leaps ahead to 114, or 92.18% and I leapfrog two places up the table.