Blue Monday... Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday...

Swannery Birding Highlights Of The Week...

Monday 20th to Sunday 26th January 2014...  



So Monday was supposed to be the most depressing day of the year... I don't know about that but it has to be said that the birding was pretty sad all week, with yet again mild, wet and windy conditions prevailing and even when the sun did shine the birding didn't!

 

There was no sign of last week's Jack Snipe or Firecrest (although I did connect with a couple of the latter on a quick trip over to the Sub-Trop. Gardens) and there was nothing of real note 'new in' either.

 

Wildfowl...

'Best of' were the Scaup, with all eight still present and a single settled Dark-bellied Brent Goose, while it was also nice to see a few Wigeon back after a week or so. Otherwise numbers and variety were much as last week.

 

Seven of the eight (Greater) Scaup along with a couple of female (Common) Pochard.
The Scaup 'flock' consists of 4 adult drakes, 2 1st winter drakes and 2 1st winter ducks.



Waders...

As already stated there was no sign of last week's Jack Snipe among the few Common Snipe nor any sign of last week's Golden Plover among the dwindling Lapwing though a Dunlin was the first for awhile. Otherwise there was just a few Redshank and a single Oystercatcher.

 

Gulls...

Despite the continued presence of the adult Glaucous Gull off The Chesil (ranging between Chesil Cove and Cogden Beach) it yet again failed to reappear at The Swannery, so the only 'white-wingers' I could come up with among all the usual species were several, now virtually expected, double figure flocks of 'Meds'.

 

Raptors...

It was rather quiet in this category too with the regular male Marsh Harrier the only 'BoP' of note (excepting the escaped Harris's Hawk of course).

 

Passerines...

I'm really struggling with this category too, I haven't even seen or heard a Chiffchaff this week for instance, although the number of common songsters in full voice grew even more, adding to the spring like conditions.

 

As to other land-birds the AWOL immature male Golden Pheasant continues to visit The Grove but there has been no sign of the Lady Amherst's for a few weeks now.

I'll leave you with further evidence of the coming spring...

 

The first Snowdrops of the year in The Swannery withybed.