Finally managed to get out

After a rocky start to the year, I have finally managed to get a couple of visits onto the patch this weekend.

To help with my recording I have played around with the boundaries and divided the patch up into 4 sections making the most of the different habitats. The great thing about including the garden is that if the weather is rubbish, I can sit at the window and watch what is going on. That certainly paid off this morning as while I was ringing I added a flyover greylag goose, pair of mallard, 200 pink footed geese and a merlin. 3 bullfinches (1st yr male, adult and 1st yr females) were an unexpected bonus.

Sadly thick fog put pay to my moochings today but not after I had managed to take my total to 50 species which I think is a pretty good start.  I think that it is probably most of the things that are about at the moment but I am hoping there will be a few surprises....
Most of my time was spent kicking around the common  in the search of woodcocks. The common is fringed with damp scrubby birch woodland with lots of bracken, ideal for roosting birds but sadly today I couldn't find any. I did managed to find a roosting barn owl, a nice flock of redwing and a mixed flock of siskin and redpolls feeding by the marsh. Is was too foggy to give them a good check, something for another day. The common is a great area for marsh tit and I had another 4 birds today.

A combination of the thick fog and my bloody foot put pay to a complete walk but not before I added another merlin to the daylist