Happy New Year! So another year has kicked off. It's always interesting in January to have to seek out once again various relatively common species for the year list - it's the only time that many of them get much attention. So far I've managed 51 from a target of about 75 that I would normally expect at this time of year. The highlights so far was a JACK SNIPE and I've also had a few Lesser Redpolls flying over and calling.
On the Meadow itself we're still firmly entrenched in Lake Mode with the waters rising if anything over the last few days and now creeping slowly towards Wolvercote. The ducks seem happy enough though they are rather hard to observe now. There are double figure counts of PINTAIL about at the moment though - they always seem to like it when the floods are extended. It's when the waters are huge like this that we can often attract rarer (for the Meadow) ducks such as Tufted Duck and Pochard. Like last year we seem to have five over wintering REDSHANK. They can regularly be found roosting on one of the logs over by the large Poplar trees to the north of the Perch Inn when the waters are like this. The gull roosts have been variable in size but they are rather far away so it's harder to pick things out though I have already managed the first YELLOW-LEGGED GULL of the year.
This Wigeon wishes you a Happy New Year!
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