Springing up the leader board

I've been surprising myself (and Seppy, I think) with an uncharacteristic burst of enthusiasm. Somehow I'm managing to drag my normally sedentary carcass all the way down to the coast on a reasonably regular basis to check the new patch. It's yielded many of the usual suspects, and a few pleasant surprises to boot.

Highlights include a rather fetching female Ring-necked duck that turned up in January, and is still on the lake hanging out with the tufty flock. She was joined in February by a female Goldeneye... also still there. 

Spring kicked off last week with at least 6 black-redstarts and a couple of fine-looking male Brambling on patch. No wheatears yet, but squillions of chiffchaffs have arrived. Nothing more tasty yet... but not a bad start.

All of which shennanigans takes me to 86, or 70.49% for the year.

Coastal commitments naturally mean I can't be arsed slogging around The Mall much these days. Even so, garden and car tickage is keeping things ticking over (see what I did there?). Best bird, and a full fat patch tick, was a fly-over Ringo a couple of nights ago.

So The Mall is on 51 species, or 65.11%.

Amayzing!

Duck games

So called spring continues to drag by on Boghall. Willow warbler and swallow were misplaced harbingers a couple of weeks ago, while mallard have undergone a population explosion on the patch, and are on every bit of water they can find. But highlight has been the very welcome return of whitethroats - welcome back boys, I've missed ya. All this bring us to a paltry 64, or 68.1% to those who can do maths (that's you Statto).

duck season

Despite it being spring, there's feck all proper migs at Galley but did net these two today (not the little egret!)

Fool's (patch) Gold!

4th ever gadwall record & 2nd ever shoveler (for me) - Oooof!

Out for a duck

It's been miserable on patch for what seems an eternity -- storms, rain, wind, more rain, storms, floods, more rain, sleet, hail, wind, storms, more rain, mud, fallen trees, wind, more rain... you get the picture.

The countryside around about is a mess -- trees flattened, hedgerows blown assunder. It's carnage out there, and birds, along with sensible birders, have been taking cover and staying out of sight. So it's been a tad quiet, and I haven't been out around patch half as often as I would like.

Some tufted ducks -- two drakes and a duck in fact -- visiting the lake for a couple of days was a useful year tick (less than annual on patch), and a great black backed gull, also visiting the lake, keeps me ticking over on 69.96%.

All my ducks in a row -- record shot of the tufties at high ISO in very low light = ropey as

tuftie

Not much to report over the weekend but a male tufted duck on de lake was new for de year - whoop!

great! gadwall!

Two gadwall on the lake de other day - have now had them the last 3 years though never a sniff before that. All good!