First Patch Rare of 2013

Not that I can claim any credit for the find, as Reg of the ol' bill called to say he had a rather nice male ring-necked duck on Meikle.  And sure enough he did.

Although not a full fat patch tick it's certainly a good un.

Migrants have started to arrive but I'm missing more than seeing and my total so far of 86 is meagre 55.27%.

Must do better

Happy days

Bushveld

Boghall strikes back

Spring arrived on Friday in Boghall. The 30 siskins that have been around for the past few weeks cranked up the volume, but two chiffchaff fought back and turned it up to 11 to break through the din.But it did not end there. 36 wheatear on the patch on Sunday, with 32 of them migrants in the lowland fields and only 4 males holding territory on the hills. Add to this willow warbler and blackcap (2 drakes and a duck) on the bird feeder, and it was shaping up well. A cracking cock brambling in full sum plum was joined by two hens at the feeder and to top it all, a couple of lesser redpolls dropped by for supper. Super. All this, together with the tawny owl I had during the week brings Boghall to 85.13%. And I still need house sparrow.
While there has not been Kumlin's gull in sight a fine vixen did pop through (although I need to change the date stamp).

Washing line strikes again!

The washing line is a great place for picking up impromptu year ticks. So much so that you'll even find me VOLUNTEERING to hang stuff out (and on any rarity scale me volunteering to do anything is going to be right up there).

This weeks washing line bounty was the first swallow back on patch... followed by a collared dove (a la the extremely dodgy digibinned-with-the-mobile and cropped half to death shot attached). Tricky enough bird on patch... so a bit of a coo to get it (sorry... couldn't resist)!

House martin turned up yesterday evening too taking me to 66 -- which in real money puts me on 80%

Better

Well, a little anyway. 5 overdue year ticks today - Arctic Skua, Whimbrel, Buzzard, House Martin and Coal Tit (not the normal habitat for them as you can see...)

All go round here

Too windy for anything but a seawatch on de weekend, which got me manxie, bonxie, tammie norrie and scooty doo for the year. A fair few mealies moulieing too. And then today its windy again, so checked de lake and there's a 1st w kumliens loafing around - saw what was shurely the same bird coast past de house 2 days ago but didn't get a great look at it. 2 house martins were new today plus I also had a shag on the lake, which was nice!

Migs Galore

Today on Patch we had 27 Wheatear, 5 Common Redstart, 1 Whinchat, 1 Ring Ouzel, 3 Whitethroat, 2 Swallow, 1 Sand Martin and about a trillion Chiffs. I saw at least one of each of them, which frankly catapults me away from the competition and through the 80% barrier, with nine new year-ticks in the last three days, during which I birded the patch for approximately four hours. A tick about once every half hour in other words.

All the best
Derek

Red Hot

Wanstead on fire! Two (count 'em!) full-fat patch ticks on Saturday, plus my first Blackcap and Willow Warbler of the year takes me to 86, or 77.25%. First up a blinding adult Kittiwake, a great London bird and good enough to fly directly over my head shaking its little black feet at me. Nearly fainted. And then when the Black Redstart was refound, well good gracious me, I may have actually passed out with delirium. Straight to the top of the leader board. It won't last, but good to let those normally at the top that I'm not out for the count just yet. Can full-fat patch ticks be beaten?! NO!

Derek