2018...New Year's Day Traditional Walk on Patch.

1^st Jan.  I awoke early today and heard the wheezing calls of Collared Doves, no doubt feasting on the seeds I provide.  Looking out of the window before breakfast my first three sightings for 2018 were Collared Dove, Wood Pigeon and Starling.  Well, not the most exciting of birds to begin the year with, but others would soon arrive, and I’m pleased to say that despite the ‘killer’ domestic cats which prowl the area the House Sparrows returned in number last year, and were soon feeding today.

I’ve been completing a walk on patch for so many years now I think it can be termed a tradition.  I find this more rewarding personally, than shooting off all over the place or to a nature reserve, to begin the year with a long list of perhaps rarer birds.  It’s certainly more relaxing and each year tends to throw up something interesting.  It’s all a matter of taste and choice of course.  Today I felt I needed to do the patch justice as I’m only too aware that it has been neglected by me of late.  By the time Sam arrive I was eager to get started.  We thought the lake would be a good starting point.

Hoping the pot of gold contains some rarities for the patch during 2018.

The lake has been very quiet in recent months and even the Great Crested Grebe seems to have chosen the past few days to leave the area.  It was such a calm, mild and sunny day with blue skies a lack of large numbers of species wasn’t going to matter too much.  Before we came close to the lake Brown Rat had become our first mammal of the year, as it had last year.  Amongst the regular waterfowl we found several Goosander, Goldeneye and Pochard.  The family of Greylag Geese remain with the Canada Geese.  Best sight of all was a skein of Pink-footed Geese numbering about 120 and heard before seen, which flew high over the lake.  It seemed that in the west some areas may have been experiencing a shower, as the colours of a rainbow deepened in hue as we walked around the lake.  I’m hoping that may be a positive sign and I’d be pleased if any pot of gold includes an occasional rarity on patch this year.

The lake area is always the busiest area on the walk, in terms of people, although I saw no birders this year apart from ourselves.  We soon headed east and to more peaceful sites.  We found Jay, only the third time I have ever seen this species on patch, all seen in the past couple of years.  It seemed possible that this one was caching food.  As we passed a hedge of bright red berries I suggested that these same berries didn’t seem to appeal to birds, at which point we found several Blackbirds feasting on them and a little later our one and only Redwing of the day flew from the hedge and perched in the tree opposite us.  A little later Grey Squirrel became our second mammal of the year.  Yes, I know they aren’t popular!  Stock Dove was seen in the same area, a regular haunt for this species.    A little further on and we came across our first Bullfinch of the day.  We found pairs of Bullfinch in four separate locations on our walk.  As we were standing on the edge of woodland a Woodcock was disturbed and lifted into the air causing some noise.   It wasn’t long before a Grey Heron rose from a pool which is hidden by trees.

We continued our walk eastwards and out onto the most open area of the patch.  It appeared to be deserted of life, but it was worth exploring anyway and perhaps because of the disastrous to the environment plans to cover this area in housing, roads schools etc, it is perhaps best we take the opportunity whilst it still exists.  This is always the coldest area of the patch and even on this mild day I felt the need to put my hat on.  It was soon taken off again as I became over heated.  By the time we had completed a circular walk of this part of the patch, the tracks must be over a mile in length we had found very little in the way of birds.  The hedges were cut low and appeared lifeless.   Our time wasn’t wasted however, and a small flock of calling Golden Plover flew around the area, our only Great Black Backed Gulls of the day flew over, a distant skein of Greylag Geese was heard and then seen and just before we were back to the roadway we found two Reed Buntings.  We found the area to have been planted and somewhat tamed.

It was now time to head for home and we followed one of the old wagon-ways rather than enter the housing estates.  I’ had no sooner said that we had surprisingly not seen Coal Tit today when within seconds one appeared amongst a mixed flock of feeding birds.  Not far away we had another one of our four Bullfinch sightings.

I was feeling cream crackered by now and it was somewhat reassuring to hear from Sam that he was tired also.  We had walked several miles, but had by no means covered the entire patch.  I listed the birds later and was surprised to find that on what had seemed a very quiet day we had a list of 45 species of bird.  It had been a wonderful start to a new year (and didn’t the team do well for once?) and I just knew I was going to sleep well (I did).  I don’t make new year resolutions, as I always think they are made just to be broken, but I will try to devote more time to the patch this year.