Getting away from dip, dip, dip, dip

After a week-and-a-bit of repeatedly dipping Napton's bearded tits (still not seen them after four, possibly five, visits) it was nice just to amble around Brandon Marsh with no particular agenda.

It was a decent session in the end, but blimey was it hard work to start with. The high wind didn't help, although thankfully we missed out on the forecast heavy rain. But the main challenge was finding any birds to get the pulse racing.

Out on East Marsh the winter wildfowl dominated - a handful of mallards and five tufties were overwhelmed by autumn incomers, with 40+ shoveler, 70+ teal and perhaps as many as 120 wigeon. Most welcome they were too, since when there's not much else on I can easily while away the hours watching, and listening to, a big flock of wigeon.

There were just three lapwing on the marsh, although later in the day 100+ did wheel in low overhead.

A long stint in the Ted Jury Hide produced absolutely nothing beyond a close-in moorhen which became my object of interest for 20 minutes or so as it picked its way through the water-weeds looking for morsels to eat. 

Fortunately things livened up on the walk back.

First a marsh tit 'sneezed' and then showed well as I left the hide. Then a little diversion down to the Riverpool Hide turned up a lesser redpoll, a good size tit flock and a kestrel. From the hide I caught a tantalising glimpse of a drake duck which was just a little too plain  in the face and a little too grey to be a mallard - almost certainly a female pintail.

Just before I reached the visitor centre a little gang of five siskin stopped beside me, and at the feeders there were reed bunting, coal tits and a nuthatch (sadly the brambling, with I definitely wasn't looking for *crosses fingers* didn't turn up).

Bird of the day: Moorhen (Gallinula chloropus) - we are all of us I'm sure guilty of being blinded to the majesty of this waterbird by its sheer ubiquity. But from it's blue-black head and bellow to its buff-brown back, from its pristine white tail to its glorious red-and-yellow bill, it's a stunner that birders can rely on from park pond to windswept nature reserve.

A long weekend

Birding on Saturday AND Monday - oh the indulgence of it.

Saturday morning was bleak and grey at Leam Valley, but warm enough. I was hoping for some early autumn movement, and wasn't disappointed. 

A good haul of birds included my first siskins of the year, a small flock of maybe six to 10 birds. Among them was also my first lesser redpoll of the season.

Down on the scrape the teal numbers had grown, with still more birds emerging bright and cheerful from drab eclipse. Three fieldfare flew overhead, a large flock of goldcrest gathered towards the rear of the site, and jays crissed-crossed the whole time.

Incredibly autumnal then, if it wasn't for the final find of the day - the distinct, if faltering, sound of chiffchaff song. Presumably a first winter male, trying out its new vocal abilities having either moved south already or lingered late. A bizarrely summery note on which to finish the session.

Monday was a rare 'spare' annual leave day, so J and myself headed to RSPB Middleton for a proper day out. 

Our aim was 50 species, and we were pleased to reach that by the time we got back to the car. 

While I had been hoping to break my long-standing habit of missing / dipping bramblings (I didn't), and I later became aware we had missed the only passage wader on site (a ruff), it was still a decent haul. 

Highlights included more siskin, a redpoll, a couple of snipe, four or more little egrets, a sparrowhawk and at least three stonechat, possibly more - for a while we just kept bumping into them, which is always nice.

Bird of the weekend: Siskin (Carduelis spinus), a lively and pretty little finch, an autumn / winter visitor only in these parts. One of the easier autumn specials to find (just locate your nearest riverside alders) but still a thrill every time. 

You say you want a resolution?

New Year's resolutions are - and let's be frank here - an utter waste of time. Useless. Pointless. Not worth the paper, or pixels, on which they are written.

Of course I'm sure you're the exception that proves the rule - that wilful chap or chap-ess who turned their whole life around with a heartfelt promise made on the stroke of midnight. 

But for the rest of us, we have a different tale to tell; the shared experience of repeated failure, self-loathing and recrimination.

So you'd think I'd have managed to kick the resolution habit by now, and to be fair I have. By and large. 

Unfortunately one crept under the radar this year: a commitment to get some proper birding in and strive for a decent county year list. 

And, in common with all New Year's resolutions, this one is already disastrously stricken; holed beneath the water line and listing (ahem) precariously to port. In short, yet another resolution is set to be wrecked before the last week of January has even begun.

A Winter Dunlin (photo: Andrew C)

Just how wrong has it gone? Well, the sum total of this year's birding to date has been two short family trips to Brandon Marsh, a bit of garden birding and a walk around the office.

So not much then.

This means the county list so far includes little more than my garden regulars, the routine Brandon wildfowl and gulls, the obvious farmland birds I've seen while out cycling, and only a couple of even-slightly-less-than-common sightings: a lone dunlin at Brandon on New Year's Day; a flock of lesser redpoll; and a shelduck today on East Marsh.

I'll still count it all when I get a moment, and endeavour to do better in the coming weeks and months.

But my hopes aren't necessarily that high.

Bird of the fortnight: Dunlin (Calidris alpina), a common and unremarkable wader, but not so much so in land-locked, winter-locked Warwickshire. All the more unremarkable to look at in winter for the lack of the black belly patch it sports throughout the breeding season.

Lesser can be more

I'm really enjoying the office patch at the moment, both for its regular finds and the occasional bonus birds it throws up.

I get to cover this small patch pretty well because rain or shine I have to be at the office a couple of times a week - and being pretty remote there's not much else to do at lunchtime but take a walk around the nearby countryside.

First up is normally the cormorant count - four this week but as high as 11 a couple of weeks back.

Second is a scan of the lake: at the moment that normally turns up a combination of either greylag and / or canada geese, mallards, 1-3 little grebe, the occasional great crested grebe, a couple of lurking moorhens, a grey heron and, somewhere about, a kingfisher.

And then it's on to the fields and hedgerows where most of the excitement has been over the last few weeks.

Over the course of two short walks this week (Monday and Wednesday) I was able to find birds including: all three common raptors (kestrel, buzzard and sparrowhawk); a decent-sized flock of yellowhammers; a regular marsh tit; treecreeper; nutchatch; goldcrest; bullfinch; plenty of long-tailed and blue tits; skylarks dotted about the place; both common woodpeckers; goldfinch and chaffinch - plus Wednesday's star bird, the lesser redpoll.

Approximately 18 lesser redpolls in fact, clustered high in a skeletal oak tree and quietly chirruping away (not a distinctive sound - 'a plainsong goldfinch' was the phrase which occurred to me at the time). 

Having not seen a redpoll for quite some time, let alone this many in one place, it took me a moment or two to identify them. But a quick scan of streaky beige back and underparts, red / darkening patches around the throat and the short forked tail soon confirmed these LBJs as lesser redpoll - an office patch first and a welcome find on any autumnal birding walk.

Bird of the week: Lesser redpoll (Carduelis cabaret), a much more common bird in the UK than its paler winter-visiting cousin the common (or mealy) redpoll (I know, bird names seem designed to confuse at times) - but still not all that regular a find in these parts.