Rain, rain and yet more rain!

On Sunday 5th January, it rained all day! However, when news of the RND came up I drove straight to Thorpeness and parked right by the Meare, I was able to scope the Meare and immediately spotted 4 Goosanders, 3 male and 1 female. Initially I couldn't see the RND, I saw a fine male Pochard and then up popped the fine male Ring- necked Duck which was constantly fishing and diving. Timely news of the Bean Geese just south of Ness Point, after excellent direction from the Fregusons I walked from where I had parked around a 1/3 of a mile north, underneath the ornate Tudor arch following the road right, past allotments and a heath and then to the cliff top field where the rain has eased off and the 2 fine Bean 'rossicus' Geese were in the extreme north- east corner of the field feeding just beyond a ridge. I watched them for 10 minutes and then left them as I walked back to the car. I then drove to North Warren, where I saw around 15 Lapwing, and various Geese but no White- fronts. It started to rain heavily. So prompted again by the Fergusons I drove to where I thought was Botany Bay near Snape. I couldn't reack the Bridge from opposite directions as the road was completely flooded but a very kind local lady, told me where the bridghe was and said it was a 1/4 mile walk at most. So I parked up just before the flood, waded through a foot of water and spotted the white posted bridge just after the bridge was a very muddy well trodden track which I walked for 200 metres to the mound that overlooked the flooded field, with 2 main lake areas, after scanning for 30 minutes I had seen around 30 Carrion Crows which had initially flown up into a tree further down the track. Looking at a 3 distant trees, the Crows were perching up in these trees, I spotted the fine Hooded Crow sen flying and obscured by the tree until it perched up on the top left of the tree.

Belated New Year's birding on the 4th!

With January 1st starting as the year had finished with strong winds and prolonged heavy rains, new year birding was indefinately postponed until the first reasonable day off from working. As it was I only had 2 days off at Christmas. So it wasn't until Saturday 4th January that I was able finally get out birding in 2025. I started by driving to Henham Quarry entrance, in the field opposite, I located a very distant Cattle Egret working along the edge of a field at the back, it then flew right and then perched on top a post. Meanwhile 3 'chackling' Fieldfare flew over joined belatedly by the football rattling Mistle Thrush that settled in the middle of the field. I then drove to Sotterley. As I parked up I heard a Nuthatch, chunterring but sadly I couldn't spot oit. I then walked over to the Church, as I did so, a small group of Wood Pigeons flew and they were joined by a single male Hawfinch that perched up in a tree along the east side of the pond. I walked around the Church where scaffolding had been erected and as I walked, I spotted the male Hawfinch spotted in tall trees just west of the Church perimeter just beyond the evergreen trees. It spent some time here and it looked at me and then to the left. As I walked back to the copse, I saw a Sparrowhawk by the side of a tree and it hopped around the back and out of sight but this put paid to any potential Nuthatch or Treecreeper sightings, sadly. As I walked to the car, a message bleeped stating there were 7 Grey P's at sandpit Lane, Ellough, I immediately drove there but couldn't see any! All I saw were 3 Red- legged Partridges. I remembered to check College Lane, so I checked from there too and immediately spotted the excellent group of 7 Grey Partridges. All hunkered down together and they were mostly asleep, save for 1 that was preening.