My best patch day of the year so far, and it started off with 3 Goosander SW & a skein of c100 Pink-footed Geese W over the garden, has i was leaving for Cortonwood.
Cortonwood itself was pretty quiet to start with and with the lake being 80% frozen over most of the wildfowl had buggered off elsewhere. The best that the open water held were 4 Pochard & just 2 Tufted Duck.
However things picked up along the Trans Pennine Trail, with 2 very vocal Great Spotted Woodpeckers & another skein of Pink-feet for the day (c200 W).
The grey skies made for what felt like an even colder day than yesterday ;
Hillies
Spoil Heap
Back at home and it was a struggle to keep the birdbath ice free, as can be seen by this ;
Mistle Thrush
And it was during one of the trips out with the kettle that i had the bird of the day, when a male MERLIN came speeding over from the N. It ingnored all the panicking Starlings and carried on heading S. Mind you, Starlings might be too much of an handful for such a dainty falcon.
Birds : January / Year - 62
Great to get all those Pink Feet milling around and Merlin is a real bonus.
ReplyDeleteMerlin form your Garden..now that's impressive. What next when you are defrosting your bird bath...Hen Harrier???
ReplyDeleteAlan : Cheers. We do well for Pink-feet as they move from Lincs/Norfolk to Lancs.
ReplyDeleteAlways great to get a bonus species.
Jason : I`ve had a few Merlins from the garden during the winter months when they move down from the uplands. It also helps living close to the Old Moor.
Hen Harrier would be nice. It could join Marsh Harrier on my garden list.
You see some wonderful birds from your garden Dean, Merlin is probably the best yet.
ReplyDeleteIm Envious of the Merlin Dean, rightly so. But that garden Mistlethrush aint far behind, only ever had one in my garden!
ReplyDeleteToffeeapple : Thank you. I guess i`m just fortunate to live where i do. Hence the good birds now & again.
ReplyDeleteWarren : Merlin`s becoming an annual sighting from the garden during the winter months. And i appreciate every one that gets seen.
There used to be a pair of Mizzies that regularly took up a feeding territory in my garden and woe betide anything else that dared to drop in to feed.