Steve's Birding,Wildlife & Walking Blog: More Patching And Winter At Last!.....26th January & 2nd February 2019.

Sunday, 3 February 2019

More Patching And Winter At Last!.....26th January & 2nd February 2019.

With two visits summarised here and the patch year list now on 86 species,the following is what i recorded on my 2 visits to this superb local patch i have.

26.01.2019.

Today's visit started well,with a hunting Barn Owl along the approach road to Winter's and a further 2 hunting the mitigation site at dawn,but no Short-eared Owl's seen today.
Grey Partridges also featured early on in the visit with 2 near to Winter's and then a further 7 on a field near to Red House Wood.
A walk along East Halton beck added 3 woodland species to the year list,with 2 Treecreeper,Jay and Goldcrest seen.
A nice flock of 30 Yellowhammer were seen,not far far from the Pig Farm along East Marsh road,which was the largest flock i have seen this winter on the patch.
A watch from Goxhill Haven while i sat and ate my lunch saw 4 Pintail head west,then back east,later being seen off Dawson City,with at least 50 Goldeneye passing west,as the tide swept them down river.
The Dawson City area was pretty productive today,with 2100 Pink-footed Geese,220 Curlew,200 Wigeon,140 Mallard and 2 different male Marsh harriers,making for some nice viewing.
A concerted effort finally paid off at East Halton Skitter,as a single Jack Snipe was flushed and a pair of Stonechat were also seen,both species new for the year.Also around the Skitter area were a Little Egret and 3 Water Pipits.
Finally,as i headed back towards Winter's a lovely hunting Merlin was seen on the mitigation site along with the usual 4 Roe Deer.

02.02.2019.

The first visit to the patch this winter with some snow on the ground and the water bodies partially frozen.
Winter's was a hive of activity today,with a lovely pair of Goosander showing really nicely along with 35 Wigeon,9 Gadwall,85 Mallard and 25 Lapwing.
A flock of 6 Grey Partridge were on the adjacent fields along with at least 60 Stock Dove.
First goodie seen today,was a pretty unseasonal one going by sightings over the past 2 years,with 2 Avocets being seen,1 flew east towards Killingholme Haven and another was watched feeding along the tide edge between Winter's and the Skitter,always nice to see in my opinion.
The Skitter area held some nice bits,with a good flock of 510 Dunlin and 96 Teal on the shore and 7 Water Pipit around the pools,the latter included 4 birds feeding together.A Peregrine was seen flying off west from the fields here also,but only seen in silhouette,so it was difficult to say whether it was the usual bird.
Only small numbers of Pink-footed Geese were logged today,with 350 on the usual pasture near Dawson and 200 Wigeon were seen on the sand bank nearby along with 7 Grey Plover.
43 Fieldfare were in a mixed flock with Starlings near Grange Farm and 2 Goldcrest,a Jay and a Brown Hare were at Red House Wood.
The sheep fields near to Winter's were quite productive today with 76 Lapwing,20 Golden Plover and 20 Curlew feeding on them,but this was all put to an end when a Peregrine appeared and they all scattered.
This latter bird,looked different to the one seen at the Skitter earlier,so I'm going to record it as a second bird.
On returning back to the car,an old type female Marsh Harrier was seen,certainly a different bird than my last several visits.

A couple of decent visits,particularly the 26th Jan,we really need some prolonged cold weather to push some different species in.