Movement

Its been dull on Boghall of late but following two bramble finches on patch at the weekend we have been moved to update our scores. We are now on 98.25%, or 75 species (total in 2016). The obvious gaps are greylag goose and whooper swan, the addition of which would take us over the ton. Nae flycatchers though.

Y-front from the jax window

Stuck me bins out the jax window this am and lo and behold there was a goose on the deck! A rare sight indeed at Galley!

Y-fronted Goose

Closer inspection after the school run revealed it to be of the Greenland race, as opposed to first thoughts of Russian. But you shouldn't try to race geese, as generally they fly too fast....

Royzah's up into second place!

He's been bangin 'em in like a good 'un the last couple of weeks, with a fine white-billed diver, pom skewer, purple sand, GND, redpoll, siskin and grey partridge all added in the last phew days! Enough to take him well clear of Mr Nimmo who is seemingly marooned in 3rd place, with nothing much left to add.

In other news, I knocked in long-tailed tits yesterday - it doesn't get any better than that!

Turning the screw

Out with the dogs this morning and scored a snow bunting. Precisely three years and one day since my last one on the patch.

112 species = 107.69%

Happy days

Bushveld

Quantity but no quality

I spent a whole 2 hrs on Saturday morning seawtaching.  This is without doubt the longest seawatch I've done in the last ten years, or more.  However, I was rewarded with a number of patch ticks including  three red-breasted merganser, three long-tailed duck and three adult sum. plum. great northern diver.  No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't convince myself that there wasn't a white-billed diver amongst them; although I strongly suspect one or two of them were.  Amazingly no Poms either, surely the only place along the east coast that didn't get one.

Still three birds for the year, along with a much later than normal jack snipe this morning.  So that puts me nicely on to 111 species for the year and 106.73%.

Easterlies tomorrow...

Happy days

Bushveld

Taiga on the patch!

Some of Ciaran Cronin's shots of the Taiga Flycatcher at Shite Lane

And a couple of sound recordings from Harry Hussey

Migrants and blunders

An eventful few days at Galley, with a fly-by, calling richard's pipit last week, a few yellow-browed warblers appearing over the weekend, while on Sunday I nailed my 4th ever great crested grebe on the lake, before bumping into a immature red-breasted type flycatcher at shite lane, which we'll have to come back to later.

What a beauty!

What wasn't so nice was deciding to go on fieldwork the next day, allowing Old Spoons to slip three (count 'em) tree sparrows (full fat patch tick), 2 stock doves (not had stockie on patch for 3 years) and a firecrest past me - Doh! I got back in time for an evening thrash but to no avail. He got photographic evidence of two of the claims so I can't even rubbish em!

Back on patch on Tuesday....

Ooooooof

An eared owl sp last night in the dark was inked onto the list as a short-eared owl. After missing a patch tick & 2 good year ticks on Monday, there's no way I'm missing out on another one just because I couldn't actually ID it!

I've updated the leader board for Bushveld, Mr Nimmo, Royzah and moi. Two over the ton already - could be a nail-biting finish!