Sunday January 31

A grey morning with almost constant drizzle. Despite these discouraging conditions I was joined by Dave, and guess what, we spent an hour in the car picking through the Lesser Redpoll flock. I counted 135 birds, but even I was forced to conclude that they all looked like Lesser Redpolls.

Actually, I am coming to the conclusion that Lesser Redpolls vary even more than I thought they did. Several showed grey, heavily streaked upper rumps, several are pale grey headed, and so on. None, however, looked larger than a Blue Tit and although we may yet discover a Mealy, I think perhaps there are none present.

Mostly Lesser Redpolls (right hand bird is a Linnet)

More Redpolls

The rain seemed to ease by late morning so we headed off on a circuit. The two male Shovelers were present again, and also the tail-less male Stonechat.

Shovelers

At the flash field we counted 32 Teal, a Lapwing, and a Green Sandpiper. The small pool behind the hedge brought the day's only year tick, a drake Tufted Duck.

This has been a very good January in terms of species seen, and if you include Feral Pigeon (which I have to for Patchwork Challenge) it leaves me on 73 species (76 points). However the down side is that this is the figure I normally achieve by the end of February, so I think the remainder of the winter could become a bit of a slog.

You never know though.