Historically, even as far back as the mid-70's, when work and travel allowed the priority on New Year's Day would be to undertake a 'twitch'. As often as not these early days adventures were undertaken with my dear friend Hugo Wood-Homer, together with whom we once held the Dorset Record of 119 for a number of years. Gone are the days as with modern technology, mobile phones, pagers, tweeter, or whatever they are called, and even in some cases the hiring of boats to scan the remote corners of for instance Poole Harbour the record must stand much higher than our paltry 119. Simple fact, records are there to be broken, so long may it continue! Back to 01/01/2017 and it wasn't even 09:00 when
GOLDFINCH
was committed to the log and soon after
BLUE TIT
and
GREENFINCH
were added. Time to return to the southern side of the
Recording Area
in the hope of a few more 'quick additions' first of which was
ROOK
at their traditional feeding grounds at
Bournemouth International Airport.
Driving past Parley Pond and completely unexpected
as to location, this
WIGEON
was found there and luckily so as the only sighting of the day.
To our shame
HOUSE SPARROW
had been completely overlooked, but welcomed, as were
GREAT TIT
and
may well have suffered the same fate as House Sparrow had it
not been for a 'drumming' bird high in the Oaks, but with
and
there was no fear of that.
No, the fear, if you'd like to call it that, came from quite another
direction and all in the name of 'haste'!
How does it go? "More haste less speed",. well never a truer word uttered
as we decided to 'drive' along the bank of the River Stour, soon to find
our self hub-cap deep in thick, squidgy, grey clay. A call to Gavin, Hugh and
Janet's youngest son got him to scramble the tractor and head my way, while wanting to play my part
it was off to 18 Acre to 'twitch'
LAPWING
of which only c2 could be found.
That man can drive anything and soon had me back on the road,
a little crestfallen and muddier than previously, but a bottle of
Captain Morgan's Spiced Rum
might just be in order in this case!
Back up north we were met by a most obliging, even if somewhat distant,
and a couple of
while most obligingly c5
had returned to the Irrigation Pond.
Between there and the Heath the rain set in 'big time' and it also
seemed like the end of daylight hours, but we forged on to record
c5 in fact
c4 in fact but still light years away from capturing our own photo.
CANADA GEESE
and the final entry of the day
TREECREEPER
bringing up a grand total of 58.
This exceeded the 2016 total by a full 'dozen' but in the deficit column
were such staples as Stonechat, Mistle Thrush, Green Sandpiper,
Kingfisher, Reed Bunting and Cetti's Warbler but
YOU NEVER GET THEM ALL!
This exceeded the 2016 total by a full 'dozen' but in the deficit column
were such staples as Stonechat, Mistle Thrush, Green Sandpiper,
Kingfisher, Reed Bunting and Cetti's Warbler but
YOU NEVER GET THEM ALL!
| Entry Pageviews | |
|---|---|
China
|
4565 if things carry on like this we may just get the whole population!
|
United States
|
402
|
United Kingdom
|
372
|
Germany
|
68
|
France
|
23
|
Ireland
|
18
|
Canada
|
12
|
Estonia
|
8
|
Ukraine
|
8
|
New Zealand
|
6
|
