31st Jan 2022: Wigeon

Mike Pollard closed out January with our first record of Wigeon for the year.

30th Jan 2022

It's been a fairly quiet couple of weeks.  The Chiffchaff has been seen a couple of times in different places. On the 23rd Clive had 6 Gadwall on the Borrow Pit and Mike Pollaord had them again on the 26th as well as 2 Stonechat along the flood aleviation bund.

16th Jan 2022: Pintails

On Tuesday Mark Ribbons had a pair of Bullfinch (new for the year list), Raven and 5 Gadwall at the Borrow Pit.

Kev Heath was out on Thursday, in fantastic still and fine weather, and found 3 Pintail (1 drake) on the reservoir and Chiffchaff in the wood (both new for the year).

Photos courtesy and copyright of JFT

This morning was fairly quiet, but there was at around 25 Siskins with a group of c.20 and then a few other individuals and small groups around too.

9th Jan 2022: Egyptian Goose

Most of the week there has been the usual species. On Thursday a Snipe flushed up from the cattle field as a jogger went by, which is a fairly uncommon place for them to be.

Today I took part in the B.O.S. short day count (some info. here ) with Clive. Naturally, this included the Grimsbury patch and we added a few new species to the year list. The highlight being an Egyptian Goose that flew over south and other species were 4 Gadwall at the Borrow Pit pool and a Kingfisher along the canal. This brings the Grimsbury year list up 64 which is fairly good for this early in the year. 

3rd Jan 2022: New Year Birding

Over the long weekend a few people managed to get out and get started on the Grimsbury 2022 list. Unfortunately, the Red-crested Pochards decided not to hang around.

On Saturday it was steady going with mostly the usual species around, but a group of 10 Ravens over West and a flock of 16 Lapwings over the UCV were good birds to get early on. In the afternoon Mark Ribbons also added Peregrine to the year list. 

On Sunday there was little change, but Clive did see two groups of Lapwings over the UCV - totalling c.250 birds. 

This morning John and I had a good stomp around. Before I got there John had seen 2 Great Black-backed Gulls over the reservoir and a Lesser Redpoll in with the Siskins. The main interest was again in the 'snipe field' where we had 4 Common Snipe, 2 Jack Snipe, a Woodcock, 2 Stonechat and a Peregrine over.

Photos courtesy and copyright of JFT