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.

Well, it has been an interesting start to the year!

New Year's Eve/Day was a bit of a messy one with the annual cocktail making competion going horribly wrong. After a Mai Tai, Midnight Cowboy, Damp Kangaroo, Woo Woo and others I can't remember, not much was done on the 1st.

Having said that, we did add reed bunting (86) to the garden list with 3 birds feeding on and off. 3 siskin and 2 lesser redpoll were also kicking about.

Adam wanted to catch up with the Northern harrier so we spent most of the day looking for it. We checked Thornham, Brancaster harbour, Burnham Norton and back to Thornham but there was no sign. 3 waxwing over Brancaster and the whooper swan at Titchwell were the highlights. We headed back home for lunch with the plan to retun to Brancaster for the roost. As were were about to set off, new came it that it had returned to Thornham, so we headed there. We got ther as the bird was hunting and decent views were had although it was starting to get a bit dark. Annoyingly, the bird dropped onto the saltmarsh on the Holme side of the harbour and didn't get back up until it was barely visible and flew strongly east over Titchwell towards Brancaster harbour.

There have been loads of birds in the garden in recent days so I decided to spend the day ringing. Ended up with a decent total of 23 new and 4 re-traps.

lesser redpoll - 1

blackbird - 3 (1 r/t)

starling - 2

blue tit - 8

coal tit - 3 (1 r/t)

goldfinch - 2

chaffinch - 2

greenfinch - 2

dunnock - 1 r/t

robin - 1 r/t

With the prospect of heading to the sales tomorrow, today was the 'last chance saloon' for my yearlist.

The day started well with an adult Ross's goose (of unknown origin!) with the pinkies and a close adult black brant on my goose walk at Snettisham this morning.

Getting into work I was confronted with the news that there had been a flock of white-fronted geese over the reserve, another one missed! I spent a couple of hours on the computer and then headed out after lunch to spend some time showing people a bittern that had been showing well on the edge of the frozen grazing marsh. Not the best shots but you get the idea!

As I walked down the path, I picked up a group of geese flying west. They didn't sound like 'pinks' but I couldn't focus my scope on them and by the time I got Dave onto them they were too far away - probable white-fronts missed! As we were showing people the bittern, a group of geese flew towards us. The sun was out by now and you could clearly see the white foreheads and black belly bars, 28 white-fronts (209)!! Amazingly we had another 12 about 30mins later.

What was even more satisfying was the fact we managed to show at least 20 people their first ever bittern just standing around on the ice - a fitting way to end the year.

I wasn't sure what would happen with yearlist and writing a blog but I have really enjoyed it. There have been many highlights including the day of Iberian chiffchaff, displaying arctic terns and ending with bee-eater, alpine swift, finally catching up with buff-breasted sandpiper, 5 black-winged stilts, 2 summer plumaged black-necked grebes in May, the opening of the new Parrinder Hide, Pallas's warbler, 200 waxwings in a week and a male Monties on my birthday to name a few. I have ended the year beating my target and it would have been nice to have caught up with at least 4 species over the last week but you can't have everything!.

So am I going to 210 in 2011? In a word....no. We are going to be away for 2 weeks in the spring and to get anywhere near this target you need to be here in May so I am setting some different goals.

1. Find a 1st for Titchwell

2. Take my British list to 400 (391 now)but not to leave Norfolk

3. Do more ringing

4. Do more moth trapping.

5. Keep the blog going and post more photos

Hope it hasn't been too dull and you have found something of interest to read.

Had an early start with a goose count at Snettisham. Decent numbers present although I think they are a little lower than a few weeks ago. Thankfully the birds left in small groups making it easier to count 13,000 (or just under) that were there. An extra surprise was a flock of 26 waxwings feeding in the hawthorns alongside the track on the drive back.

With the news of at least 4 yearticks (hooded crow, bean goose, BT diver, purple sand) on the reserve in the last couple of days I decided to head there for a few hours. The hooded crow is also a reserve tick so I decided to spend some time on the beach and saltmarsh (where it had been) looking for it. On the walk down, the Northern harrier was hunting over Thornham Point but everywhere was still frozen and quiet. A nice group of linnet were feeding along the tideline but the surprise was bumping into the shorelarks from yesterday on the edge of the saltmarsh. They were very confiding but wouldn't stop moving making digiscoping difficult but with the wonders of Photoshop, I have some reasonable images.

The sea and beach were very quiet so I decided to get in some digiscoping practise on some of the waders. As with the shorelarks, I am still trying to work out the best settings but at least I can edit things when I get home. It will be good to see how things come out when the light is better. Having said all that, I don't think that this grey plover is that bad.

6 long-tailed tits and a sparrowhawk in the garden this afternoon and another black-headed gull caught yesterday.

Christmas morning stared off well with a 2nd for the garden. Lying in bed I could hear the blackbirds going mad in the garden at what I assumed to be one of the bloody cats from next door. As I stood at the window trying to see it, a little owl flew off our roof and across the garden with the blackbirds in hot pursuit - nice!! A brambling was in the trees again and there were 3 lesser redpolls around this afternoon. Someone told me that there are still some waxwings in the village so I have put out some apples and put a tape on this afternoon. One would make a nice Boxing Day present!

We decided to go for a walk around the Burnham Norton area as the weather cleared into a cracking sunny day. Things were pretty similar to a few weeks ago but the marshes were frozen and very few wildfowl or waders were about. Things started well with a cracking mealy redpoll feeding on some roadside weeds, a common buzzard roosting in a plantation and 8 barnacle geese in a field near the carpark. Bird of the day however, was a decent sighting of the Northern harrier over the saltmarsh. With my new camera I was able to get some reasonable record shots.

A couple of Lapland buntings, barn owl, spotted redshank and 5 marsh harriers added extra interest.

Managed to try out digiscoping with my new camera with some success. It is going to take a while to get used to it and find out what the best settings are but I am pleased with the first attempts below.

A very clever man has managed to fix the computer. A virus had corrupted Windows and our hard-drive. Thankfully he managed to recover everything!

Started the Christmas break with a ringing session in the garden. Didn't get a great deal but did manage to get another black-headed and common gull. A woodcock flew through late morning but a pair of bramblings in the trees couldn't be tempted down. With milder conditions I should be able to get a bit more ringing in over the coming days.

Computer crashed last night and we ended up with the 'blue screen of death' so there probably won't be much news in the near future.

Hopefully the computer isn't knackered!!