Ok, so when I thought I'd have one last crack at the patch this year, well that didn't happen. Instead, I did some reccying for our Jan 1st bird race tomorrow. Starting at Kilvington Lakes, decent birds were single Goosander, Shelduck and Red-crested Pochard - all potentially useful.
I then decided to have a quick look at Cotham Landfill, where I bumped into Alex Lees - a nice chap who I've corresponded with in the past. However, the gulls were not performing, with only a small number on view from our position. We spied Edmund Staunton across the other side in his hi-vis jacket (a requirement of privileged access to the site), and it was presumably he who had the juv Iceland Gull on the main tipping area, sadly out of view of our position.
After failing to find any LEO's with Alex, I returned home for lunch and domestic duties, before a stroll round Langford. We bumped into Michael C there, the site manager, who gave us a guided tour. Highlights were a pair of Pintail, plus single Stonechat and Snipe; no Bitterns for us this evening.
So, we'll see what tomorrow brings. I'll be happy with anything around the 90 mark. That, or a Little Bustard... And on the patch front, I finished the year on 135 species and 162 points - 1 species and 5 points less than 2013. So onwards to 2015 - 140 species must be possible!
The gulls were all on the flash again, another big circling flock of several hundred. Lots of big gulls roaming a field near the Devon in Hawton
ReplyDeleteThanks Simon. They don't make it easy!
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