Walking in a Winter Waderland

Made a early start this morning on the patch and  was rewarded with a Woodcock on the deck in the snow near the bomb hole (82) good views of it until I got the camera out of the bag-typical. After putting the camera away I headed towards the reservoir checking through the large number of duck 30+ Wigeon, Gadwall, Coot etc, I then moved around the corner to view the small island and there on the ice was 2 Dunlin (83) good birds for here and only my 2nd record for the site. A quick record shot see below, I phoned the other valley lads and the Dunlin flew towards the island for much better views. 

And by this time Paulboy, Martin B and Dave Mc arrived to patch year tick them followed later by Dave Mo.

With Dave Mc and Martin now having other things to do for the rest of the morning Paul and I carried on towards the farmers trail and flushed a Jack Snipe (84) out of a small ditch which dropped back down into it 25m along in front of us. Luckily  Martin wasn't to far away for a return visit and enjoyed a quick flight view as below and then had to leave the valley again for a second time.

With Dave Mo playing catch up Paul and I done the decent thing and awaited for him to arrive but unfortunately the small snipe stayed out of sight. However 2 Grey Partridge in the ploughed field (85) a site tick for me and Paul, Dave was once again smiling as it was a patch year tick for him too.

The weather no doubt played a big part in what was a terrific local mornings birding displacing some good scarce birds on to the patch and does make you appreciate how hard it must be for common or scarce birds to survive the cold temperatures we've  been having this week.

 We never get Fieldfare in the garden but like most birders this week around the country it was really pleasing to have one guarding the apples we put out for the local Blackbirds.....