Mopping up the leftovers

Arrived back home on the 6^th January under the cover of darkness following the festive period away. Heading for the office on the 7^th and, still under the cover of darkness, my #patchbirding challenge account opened with a ‘half-heartedly’ singing Song Thrush, quickly followed by equally ‘half-hearted’ attempts by a Robin and a Blackbird in the garden. As lunchtime approached I left the office and made the short way down to Blacksod Point in the hope of connecting with some pre-xmas ‘patch goodies’. Scanning from the pier I quickly added a variety of ‘regular’ waders and gulls, as well as some ‘2 pointers’ including several Great Northern and Red-throated Divers, 4 Slavonian Grebes, 100+ Pale-bellied Brent Goose and a couple of Black Guillemots whilst 3 Purple Sandpiper were roosting on the old pier. Heading back I made a brief visit back home and found the bird feeders busy with, in particular, 3 male House Sparrows – the first of the ‘patch goody leftovers’ – and ending the session with 46 species on the list.

Birdless Tarmon Hill - not even a Meadow Pipit!

The following morning, watching the feeders over breakfast added the next leftover in the form of 2 Great Tits. Again a lunchtime foray added a few more ‘2 pointers’ with an adult Black-throated Diver offshore, an over-wintering Whimbrel on the beach along with 4 Chough whilst in a ‘tatty patch’ a small group of Twite were feeding along with 7 Snow Buntings. Scanning through 300+ Barnacle and several Greylag Geese, a lone Pink-footed Goose was found. Heading back to the office a further 21 species had been ‘penned-in’ on the list.



#patchgold2012 - Treecreeper



The next addition, a Treecreeper, was actually a Mullet tick for me in November last year, which I had last seen on 10 December so it was great to see it appear in the garden again yesterday! The final ‘leftover’ appeared this morning with 3 Long-tailed Tits in one of the gardens.

Long-tailed Tit

A good stomp around the patch today clocked a further 5 additions including 2 Woodcock and a fly-over Whooper Swan bringing the overall score to 92 points i.e. 42.59%. Not a bad week!

Dave