Friday 30th - following an awesome eight kites low over the house in the morning, a trip to Sheffield to see David and co today gave the perfect opportunity to stop off for a few minutes at Pugney's to notch up a late year tick of two Great Northern Divers. Only other sighting of note was a Goosander flying over in Sheffield by Hillsborough Park.
Thursday 29th - just the one kite over Bramhope today. A dull and rainy day - we had a walk around Golden Acre and Adel Dam in the afternoon, where the feeders in front of the hide were busy with common birds, but no Willow Tits; this species hasn't been here for several years now apparently, a sad loss.
Wednesday 28th - home to Leeds for a few days, with a couple of Red Kites welcoming us to Bramhope. Later in the day, another kite was soaring over Garforth as we drove to Fairburn. We walked down Lin Dyke and failed to find the LEOs. However, I did find rather a good bird here - a Bean Goose in the Greylag flock which appeared to be a new bird. It looked to me like a Taiga, although I wasn't 100% sure - subsequent reports on BirdGuides suggested split opinions, although someone on BirdForums also said Taiga and said it was the second ever for Fairburn - cool. Also here was my first Smew of the year, plus a belated Yorkshire tick of Little Egret. We then drove to Swillington and spent a while in the Astley hide - my first visit for many years, and great to see the new massive reedbed in the distance! Highlight here was at least one Twite amongst a Linnet flock on the boomerang island - small but quite clear - there had apparently been up to four recently. Also a couple of Buzzards, 21 Curlew and 20+ Tree Sparrow. The best bird in many ways though was another good self-find for the day - a distant flying wader came closer and closer and turned out to be a Knot, only my second inland bird following one in 1994 at Chew.
Tuesday 27th - drove to Leeds
Monday 26th - went for a Boxing Day walk around Rockland Broad and Claxton Marshes, with the highlight being my second ringtail Hen Harrier in two days, a photogenic Little Grebe by the hide and an unusual sight of a flock of Blackwits flying south over Rockland Broad - presumably from Buckenham, but unclear where they were going to. Also two live Chinese Water Deer and one dead one on the path.
Little Grebe, Rockland Broad
Bean Goose, Fairburn Ings (the one in the middle!)
Knot, Astley Lake (poor record shot!)
Great Spotted Woodpecker, Adel Dam (photo possibly by Tom or Dunc)
Typical garden birdwatch, Bramhope
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