Late December highlights

The year finished with a variety of highlights - mostly interesting birds that lingered or reappeared and one final new species for the year in the form of 2 Jack Snipe flushed on 27th December along with at least 6 Common Snipe.  Good to know they are still visiting the site and they take the site total to 131 for the year.

A Little Owl was in its usual hole (pictured) on 7th December however, the next day, Storm Darragh brought its tree down and the hole now sits just a foot above the ground!  Subsequent visits have revealed new droppings at the lowered hole suggesting the Little Owl may have continued to visit the hole despite its toppling.

The toppled Little Owl tree

On the water, wildfowl numbers grew with at least 20 each of Shoveler and Gadwall and the occasional single Tufted Duck and Pochard.  Diving ducks seem to have pretty well vacated the site this month but the male Pintail stayed on until at least 29th Dec while Wigeon numbers peaked at 55+ mid-month.  At least one Little Grebe remains faithful to the deep pit.

The Caspian Gull reappeared on 24th along with an adult Yellow-legged Gull, the former then staying with the gull roost until 28th.

From left to right: the 3rd winter Caspian Gull, the Caspian Gull showing primary wing pattern & the adult Yellow-legged Gull

The immature male Marsh Harrier put in an appearance on 18th while a lone Golden Plover flew around the site on 26th.  Otherwise it was business as usual with up to 4 Green Sandpipers remaining on site and a flock of c80 Lapwings split between the deep pit and the new workings scrape.  At least 4 Stonechat stayed on the weedy areas while the 100-strong flock of Linnet continued to enjoy the seed-heads on the restored areas.

A final highlight, particularly as they don't seem to common this winter, were 3 Lesser Redpolls (soon to be demoted to simply 'Redpolls') that were feeding on the alders along the Coopers Green Lane border.

Lesser Redpolls