Wednesday 4 January 2012

The Year So Far.

Happy New Year to you all and thanks again to everyone who was in touch recently with Christmas greetings and best wishes for 2012. I'll try to post a reflection of 2011 soon, for now though most of my work time is clearing the office based jobs before the start of the next season (which seems to be looming excitingly ever closer on the horizon). A quick update on the start of 2012 first though:
Finding enough food in the winter storms can be a Little Aukward for some of the seabirds and this one looked like it was struggling a bit in the North Haven today (another was seen flying past South Light).

A total of 38 species were logged on 1st January, with Tommy and Henry starting the day and me joining them after lunch (well, it had been a late Hogmanay). The highlight was probably the lovely first-winter Glaucous Gull floating around the north of the island, although it was nice to see seven European White-fronts back amongst the Greylags after a fortnight or so missing. The following day saw Wigeon and Teal added to the total whilst today was also duck-themed, with Common Scoter, Long-tailed Duck and Red-breasted Merganser getting their first tick of the year in the Log, along with Black-headed Gull, at least a couple of which were in the south of the island.
Not many people would be jealous of a dead seal viewable from the kitchen window, but this unfortunate large bull Grey Seal has had a few envious glances from the south of the island! Fair play to Tommy, who braved the carcass with a knife to encourage the gulls in, perhaps the forecasted NW gales this week will see it come good...
There's plenty of non-bird news as well, but that will have to come later - I'm sure there'll be a few more rainy days in which I can update the blog.

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