Marsh Confusion

And we're off!

Snow held up play on Sunday and made for a slow start with 56 species noted over the weekend. The pick of the bunch was a female/imm Marsh Harrier along Kelk Beck on Sunday morning. Although regular in summer this is my first record during winter.

Conventional wisdom says they're summer migrants but in recent years more and more have been staying throughout. Blacktoft Sands is the most important site in Yorkshire (and in Northern England?) with a mightly impressive 30 roosting earlier this month. I remember seeing the first pair to return to breed in Yorkshire at Blacktoft in the early 1990s, having become extinct as a species in UK during the 19th century. I would not have imagined many years later I'd be seeing one floating around Kelk on a freezing January morning.


20th-21st January

Mute Swan - 2
Greylag Goose - 150
Wigeon - 200
Teal - 80
Mallard - 110
Grey Partridge - 19
Little Grebe - 1
Cormorant - 3
Little Egret - 5
Grey Heron - 3
Marsh Harrier - 1 'creamcrown'
Buzzard - 5
Kestrel - 4
Lapwing - 100
Snipe - 8
Woodcock - 1
Green Sandpiper - 2
Woodpigeon - flocks of 1800 & 400
Great Spotted Woodpecker - 3
Meadow Pipit - 1
Grey Wagtail - 1
Fieldfare - 130 in several flocks
Redwing - 1
Mistle Thrush - 3
Goldcrest - 1
Coal Tit - 4
Jay - 2 presumably birds from 2017
Carrion Crow - 30+ together
Tree Sparrow - 60 in one flock Kelk Beck
Bullfinch - 5
Yellowhammer - 12

Grey Squirrel - 2
Roe Deer - 16

One of the five Little Egrets. I'm slowly getting closer to a good photo.

Winter moon

Hibernating snails?

Trying and failing to squeeze a bit more birding out of the winter daylight.

Wigeon in a blizzard.

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