A very rare full days birding yesterday (1st Jan') in Notts! Highlights included a pair of Lesser 'peckers showing well at Rufford CP early morning and a fly over Waxwing there. There were an awful lot of Redpoll sp. swarming about and they may have been worth scouring for a Meally or better! Also at Rufford there seemed to be Blings everywhere but sadly no Haws appeared in the 90 minutes we were present. Onto Budby where the wintering G-G.Shrike showed well but otherwise the 'common' was deadly quiet. Hoveringham was equally as dead apart from the usual crowds of sailing freaks! In Barton-in-Fabis, the 4 Bewick's were still present with the Mute Swan crew and nearby in Clifton a swarm of Corn Bunts showed well in tree's adjacent to a housing estate - the first time I've seen them at this 'well known' location and pretty strange to see such a species knocking around next to a busy main road, bus stop, thinners-swilling tramps and residential buildings! Finally we spent the last hour or so at Attenborough where we failed to see any Bitterns or anything else remotely interesting primarily due to the sheer volume of twats with brats & dogs ensuring the 'nature reserve' resembled White Rose Way at 5pm on a match day saturday!
We finished the day just 4 birds short of breaking the Notts NYD record, sadly missing easy sh*t such as Yellowhammer, LAPWING(!), Golden Plover, Grey Wagtail. R***y D**k, Redshank, all the owls, etc.
Sunday 2nd Jan was spent mostly in the 'county' of Rutland Water. Despite being bitterly cold and depressing, we saw very little! Yep, that's how sweet it was! Meagre highlight included a Mr Smew off Barnsdale, a Rouge Kite over the dam, a cheeky gang of 29 White fronts (viewed from Sykes Lane) and another Mr Smew & 4 Scaup off Normanton. Sadly our hardcore efforts to squeeze a yank out of the Wigeon flocks just weren't good enough. Finished off at Eyebrook where the American Teal was sleeping on some ice and two pimping Mr Smews were dragging along 6 bitches. Nearby, 'The Tree' seems to have evicted it's long term resident small Owl(s).
Oh, and this blog is gonna be pretty image-less for a while as my camera (phone) decided to have a wash on Christmas Eve and sadly fell asleep in the sink & drowned!
