It's the end of the year and, unfortunately, there was no late treats for us. On the 24th there was a nice selection of ducks with 8 Wigeon and 2 Gadwall present amongst the usuals, an adult Yellow-lgged Gull and the pair of Stonechats still. On the 28th a Chiffchaff was near the entrance and on the 29th there was 2 female Shovelers.
The year list limped up to 113 which is a really poor total, the lowest for quite some time and the first time since 2017 we haven't got 120+. One really notable species we missed was Wheatear, but hopefully this is just an oddity with this year as it was a poor year generally it seemed. We seemed to have very few waders this year and didn't manage to connect with a few scarce birds like Arctic Tern, Sandwich Tern, Kittiwake and Common Scoter, which are certainly not garanteed but not terribly rare.
Despite that there were some really good records, with JFT adding Pink-footed Goose to the site list, a Marsh Harrier, a couple of Little Gulls, a Cuckoo, multiple Rock Pipits, more Great White Egrets this year than ever recorded before and a few records of Crossbills.
Hopefully next year is a bit better. Happy New Year and good birding!
