Today's plan was to get a few errands done in the morning then go out for a wander. As it was, I caught up on the sleep I hadn't had for the past week.
I'd refilled the feeders yesterday which normally results in a steady stream of spadgers in the garden but three squirrels monopolised the sunflower feeders most of the morning. I'm not sure what's happening there, there's definitely an established pair (I've no idea where their drey is, it's not in my garden or either of my immediate neighbours'), how the third fits in only time will tell.
The spadgers got their chance at lunchtime when I went out to refill the fat balls (again!) and the cat went to her latrine. I've mentioned before how hard it's getting to be telling the two family groups apart, I was lucky today as the patriarch of the "silver" family made himself conspicuous. He must be at least three years old now, with his extensive black bib and white cheeks he can be mistaken as a great tit when he's moving about in the blackcurrant bushes. One of the younger males often makes me look twice as he's got pale cheeks but a nearly entirely brown cap (there's just a fine grey streak in the centre). Last year's males in this group have their bibs now but have steel grey cheeks and underparts, a couple with rich tawny flanks. The "tawny" family are still primarily sandy greys although a couple combining steely grey cheeks with sandy brown underparts suggest there's a bit of gene flow going on between the groups. I can't assign any of the females to families without having any of the males around for confirmation: most, but not all, of the females with bright white bellies are "silver."
It was surprisingly quiet on the playing field today, just a dozen black-headed gulls and a couple each of lesser black-backs and herring gulls. I was glad to see a common gull pass by, they've not been around for a few days.
I was chatting with a friend the other day about year list stats. He'd remarked on how quickly I'd added to the list then realised that at the beginning of January it should be pretty easy. And so it is. There are thirty or so species of birds I can virtually guarantee seeing in the normal course of any week's pottering about. By and large, after the surge in the first week or so of the year there's a steady accumulation throughout January and into February. There's another surge in the latter half of March and April with the arrival of the first Spring migrants and the passage of Winter migrants, usually followed by another slow accumulation of Summer visitors and waders on passage. Late Summer tends to be the doldrums. Autumn is a time for catching up with the Summer visitors I missed as they pass through on the way back to Winter quarters. It's also the time for the unexpected as young birds turn up in unlikely places. And then, if I'm lucky, I can catch up with one or two Winter visitors I missed at the beginning of the year.
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| Species I recorded on BirdTrack in 2019 |
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| 2022 was an example of peaking early |
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