It has been a bit of an odd start to the year. Without the focus of a yearlist I have not been too bothered about looking for stuff on the reserve and I wouldn't even know how many species I have seen so far. Having said all that, I has been a good week for catching up with things that I missed last year.

Highlight so sar has been a female scaup on the fresh marsh since Thursday morning. I first saw it with bins and assumed that it was just a 'scaup-faced' tufty until someone said that they thought they had seen a scaup. On closer inspection the bird was a female scaup. The bird doesn't have a full blaze of white over the bill and I suspect that it is a 1st winter as everything looks fine rather than a hybrid. 3 more waxwings over on Wednesday and there was one calling over the garden on Tuesday morning. In Iceland gull has been in the Thornham Harbour roost several times recently - another one missed last year.

First ringing session for over a month tomorrow so hopefully there will be plenty of birds about.