January 1st 2018

1st. January 2018

The usual tour of Seasalter looking for a good haul of species but I didn't start very early which has been the norm lately so I only managed just over an hour in real terms.  I started along SS lane picking up marsh harrier, stock dove and song thrush plus a few commoner species. Then I moved down to the seafront beach roost area picking up most of the waders except the godwits and knot, the tide was already nearly up to the beach........should have got up earlier. Mind you a red-throated diver was a big surprise as it flew in from the east plus a couple of g c grebes were the only other birds on the sea!  I then walked over the plots which were fairly quiet but found snipe, stonechat, heron, chaffinch, goldfinch but no mipits.  As I was leaving it started to rain so I got to the car and drove up to the Sportsman and added pied wagtail, lapwing and pheasant seen from the car.....it was pelting down now and just didn't stop so I aborted at 11.45 seeing just 43 species missing loads.