Happy New Year To All 124,303 Of You!

The last day of 2011 was given over to planning where to go tomorrow, on what will be a New Year's Day Twitch, while also reflecting on yet another interesting, varied and satisfying year personally. I foresee birding on the home front taking something of a back-seat in 2012, certainly in the earlier months if my ideas come to fruition, so to that end I will set myself something of an ambitious target. Rather than concentrating on a Year List it may be better to focus on just January before I know how the later months will pan out. This January saw the highest number of species recorded, 176, since I started keeping records in 1973, so the figure to reach will be set at 200 and I'll keep you up to date all the way.

As for reminiscing, I have notched up a total of 267 birds for the year in UK, 222 of those having been recorded in my home county of Dorset, but neither are record breaking as 298 species were seen nationwide during 2002 while year 2000 saw my best Dorset count of 225.

Travel has also been successful and rewarding with 15 countries visited including England (of course), Scotland, Spain, France, Mexico, the USA, Canada, Australia, Italy, San Marino, Monaco, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and Belgium, including the last 3 of the 50 US States and the last 5 countries of Europe.

The Top 3 Best Memories have to be - (1) Visiting Sydney, Australia and seeing my 2 daughters and 3 grandsons all in one room, not knowing if that will happen again? (2) Meeting my shipmate Michael (Huck) Hutley again after 35 years absence. (3) Recording both Yellow-footed Gull and Red-legged Kittiwake necessitating travelling from California Baja, Mexico to the Pribilof Islands in The Bearing Sea, leaving me just on more species (Relict Gull) on earth to record. Blog Stats to follow.

Today was again sunny after some heavy overnight rain, a little breezy but again with mild temperatures. At least there were some Pink-footed Geese overhead, making for the feeding grounds, but what was needed were a few on the deck at close quarters. Not exactly a day to go down in the annuls, starting when I arrived at Holkham, about 16 miles from the B&B, to find I had not taken the flash card from the reader and replaced in the camera after down-loading.

Things perked up a bit when a Rough-legged Buzzard was found, not unexpectedly, in the roost bush (can you see it yet? centre picture) probably the same 2 favoured last year.

This 'cropped' image gives a slightly better idea.

I don't remember the name or location of this unusual looking church, there were too many birds on my mind, however a call into

Titchwell again produced the Coues' Arctic Redpoll, but again no photos, and 2 Marsh Harrier quartering the reed-beds on arrival.

This male Shoveler was too close to the hide to be ignored, but just about everything else kept its distance.

Lapwing,

Goldfinch,

female Pintail and

Little Grebe had all been sighted before, but Common Snipe, Sanderling and a last minute Hen Harrier were all added to the Trip List.

A short drive towards Fakenham found this small mixed gaggle of Pink-footed and Greylag Geese in a stubble field, but again at distance,

while this Hall with no detail sadly looked like it was falling into ruin! Once again no Partridge were seen, in days gone by you would have run over a brace covering this distance, but the prospect of

was also soon to turn to disappointment.

A beautiful and well managed little reserve, Sculthorpe was literally carved out of the undergrowth and scrub of what was once considered 'waste ground', but not any more.

Here, my sights were set on all the common woodland birds but more particularly the small but healthy colony of Willow Tit that have made home here.

That was to be the first and biggest disappointment as the locals told me that they are hardly ever seen these day, what has happened?? Blackbirds in their dozens along with Chaffinch were predominant, but as for Woodpeckers, Treecreeper, Nuthatch, Bullfinch and many more they were all absent!

Long-tailed, Coal & Marsh Tit were visiting the feeders, but where once there were 'tens' of these, only ones and twos are now present.

Of some bonus value was the short appearance of this Water Rail and an over flying Grey Heron, but what would normally be a 2 to 3 hour stay was reduced dramatically.

As for Statistics, on this very day 2 new people have joined as 'followers' making the total 81, while no fewer than 124,303 separate and individual readers have 'been tuned in' since the Blog began - incredible!

As some data has been lost as a result of the Log Size being too small, below is the figure since we upgraded from 25,500 capacity to the current log size of 50,500 that now has 29,414 entries, an increase of 3,000 readers in just 3 weeks.

160 Nations or Regions now read this Blog, the latest being El Salvador, while over the last year we have had an average monthly readership of 7212.

	Num	Perc.	Country Name
	22248	75.64%	United Kingdom
	1830	6.22%	United States
	375	1.27%	Canada
	321	1.09%	Germany
	300	1.02%	Estonia
	271	0.92%	France
	256	0.87%	Australia
	215	0.73%	New Zealand
	211	0.72%	Italy
	209	0.71%	Netherlands
	202	0.69%	Spain
	186	0.63%	India
	169	0.57%	Brazil
	136	0.46%	Japan
	132	0.45%	Sweden
	114	0.39%	Belgium
	108	0.37%	Russian Federation
	90	0.31%	Switzerland
	79	0.27%	Poland
	76	0.26%	Peru
	68	0.23%	Mexico
	67	0.23%	Taiwan
	65	0.22%	Romania
	64	0.22%	Korea, Republic Of
	60	0.20%	Indonesia
	60	0.20%	South Africa
	53	0.18%	Pakistan
	51	0.17%	Ireland
	49	0.17%	Philippines
	49	0.17%	Portugal
	49	0.17%	Norway
	48	0.16%	Finland
	47	0.16%	Greece
	45	0.15%	Chile
	44	0.15%	Hong Kong
	42	0.14%	Ukraine
	42	0.14%	Anonymous Proxy
	41	0.14%	Czech Republic
	40	0.14%	Denmark
	39	0.13%	Sri Lanka
	38	0.13%	Thailand
	38	0.13%	Turkey
	35	0.12%	Colombia
	35	0.12%	Singapore
	35	0.12%	Vietnam
	34	0.12%	Malaysia
	32	0.11%	Argentina
	32	0.11%	Hungary
	28	0.10%	Israel
	27	0.09%	Bulgaria
	25	0.08%	Egypt
	25	0.08%	Slovakia
	23	0.08%	Croatia
	22	0.07%	Serbia
	20	0.07%	Venezuela
	20	0.07%	Saudi Arabia
	19	0.06%	United Arab Emirates
	18	0.06%	Guatemala
	17	0.06%	Asia/pacific Region
	17	0.06%	Oman
	17	0.06%	Luxembourg
	17	0.06%	Costa Rica
	16	0.05%	Austria
	15	0.05%	Malta
	13	0.04%	Palestinian Territory
	13	0.04%	Lebanon
	12	0.04%	Lithuania
	12	0.04%	Bangladesh
	12	0.04%	Ecuador
	10	0.03%	Madagascar
	9	0.03%	Qatar
	8	0.03%	Belarus
	8	0.03%	Guernsey
	8	0.03%	Europe
	8	0.03%	Yemen
	7	0.02%	Iraq
	6	0.02%	Georgia
	6	0.02%	Latvia
	6	0.02%	Isle Of Man
	5	0.02%	Cyprus
	4	0.01%	Mongolia
	4	0.01%	Slovenia
	4	0.01%	Trinidad And Tobago
	4	0.01%	Belize
	4	0.01%	Namibia
	4	0.01%	Virgin Island, U.s.
	4	0.01%	Jamaica
	4	0.01%	Montenegro
	3	0.01%	Puerto Rico
	3	0.01%	Macedonia
	3	0.01%	Bosnia And Herzegovina
	3	0.01%	Azerbaijan
	3	0.01%	Ethiopia
	3	0.01%	Bahrain
	3	0.01%	China
	3	0.01%	Gibraltar
	3	0.01%	Kuwait
	3	0.01%	Algeria
	3	0.01%	Bermuda
	3	0.01%	Netherlands Antilles
	2	0.01%	El Salvador
	2	0.01%	Panama
	2	0.01%	Armenia
	2	0.01%	Satellite Provider
	2	0.01%	Tanzania, United Republic Of
	2	0.01%	Cambodia
	2	0.01%	Iceland
	2	0.01%	Uruguay
	2	0.01%	Zimbabwe
	2	0.01%	Jordan
	2	0.01%	Andorra
	2	0.01%	Dominican Republic
	2	0.01%	Bahamas
	2	0.01%	Gabon
	2	0.01%	Kenya
	2	0.01%	Grenada
	2	0.01%	Uganda
	1	0.00%	Ghana
	1	0.00%	Suriname
	1	0.00%	Cameroon
	1	0.00%	Fiji
	1	0.00%	Albania
	1	0.00%	Jersey
	1	0.00%	Guyana
	1	0.00%	Nigeria
	1	0.00%	Macao
	1	0.00%	Aruba
	1	0.00%	Turks And Caicos Islands
	1	0.00%	Maldives
	1	0.00%	Morocco

I have to thank both Paul Harris for help in every direction from Birds to Wine and Moths to Music, and Martin Cade, Warden of the Portland Bird Observatory for lending his weight and Web Site to increasing the readership dramatically.

If you would like to fulfil my New Year Wish - Wherever You Are In The World - please click onto your E-Mail, copy this link The Bagsy Blog and send to ALL adressees.

One (or maybe 2) Foot in the Door

Here at the Bagsy Blog we avoid advertising at all cost, even with attractive financial inducements and in one case a $1,000 offer for the site in its entirety, that was never going to be our direction. However, when I come across a special little gem, I think it only fair to share it with my true and loyal readership. Here is the Web Site, well worth tucking away in your Favorites/ Bookmarks if nothing else, and a few photographs taken this morning.

Blakeney Bed & Breakfast

Wooden Cabins, of what might be described as in the Swedish style, are located in the

Back Garden of Pip & Alison Weston's home 2 minutes away from the main North Norfolk road with easy access to all 'birding sights', places of interest and some quality restaurants and pubs.

Inside they are totally cosy, even on the coldest winters day, and not strewn with all my kit.

Everything you might expect in a good hotel or guest house is on hand and if reasonably requested can be obtained (such as Internet access).

and did you notice that picture on the photo above? None other than Portland Bill, a site I visit regularly and often when I'm in residence. It was intended to show readers an example of the Breakfast Table, which will follow eventually, as soon as I've got the wide-angle lens.

Now on to today, with the first visit being to Cley next the Sea

or more particularly to the Cley Marsh Reserve Visitor's Centre to enquire after a recent migrant from the Americas.

While I have been to this almost new building before, I had never venture inside and was mightily impressed with all the facilities. However, pulling up in the car park and baring in mind I hadn't been in Norfolk 24 hours yet, I was shocked to be told "you can't park here mate". I was even more surprised to turn and find Dave Foot ( a 'birding' friend also from Weymouth) stood beside me with his brother.

They too were in search of the same quarry so we walked the west bank of the East Scrape together

reaching 3 equally new hides via a series of boardwalks.

Dave & brother Mike.

There were plenty of birds to sort through, mainly Wildfowl and Wader with the best of the latter (so far) being this small party of Avocet.

Some of the Wildfowl were at close quarters like these Wigeon

with both male

and female approaching very close to the hide.

There were also Shelduck

putting on an amusing display in an attempt to get to the more succulent bits,

Teal and

Greylag Geese but still I had not seen a Pink-footed Goose. In addition, there was a Sparrowhawk hunting the marsh which was seen to take a small Wader from a spit some distance away. As these things do in 'birding' the rumour soon started that this may well have been our target bird, but I was reassured by Dave's claim that he saw it fly to the east bank.

Nevertheless, the Raptor did put0up all the Wader making for a spectacular sight of Golden Plover, Ruff, Dunlin, Lapwing and best of all

the small flock of Avocets.

These may not be the most striking pictures, but the Avocets were certainly the most striking birds so far today.

At this point Dave and Mike departed to search pastures new, while I hung on for another hour during which time a Tundra Bean Goose arrived as did a Black-tailed Godwit. By now I too had decided to try again later and went off in search of Partridge and Pink-feet.

All I saw were 2 cock Pheasants in a sparring contest and a Common Buzzard, but a call from Dave soon had my interests firmly in another directions. Seems his eyes were not letting him down and he had found the Yank at the other side of the lagoon. With 'perfect' directions I arrived at

Arnold's Marsh without delay, but then there was just the small matter of walking the Bund to where the bird was - let's hope the emphasis is not on WAS!

The tiny Western Sandpiper was there alright

and seen here between 2 Dunlin. While the views were all distant this was a bird I had only seen once before in Great Britain, the first time photographed in UK and a great addition to the Year List. Along with the Coues' (which is by all accounts pronounces 'cows') Arctic Redpoll, brings my GB year total to 267. Together we decided to change location and on the way back to the cars there were great views of

Cley Mill

and on arrival at Cley Beach Car Park,

quick as lightning, Dave set up a 'Soup Kitchen' me opting for the pea & ham - lovely! The discarded bits of bread brought in a few Black-headed Gulls,

a couple of most confiding Turnstone

plus a fine looking Common Gull.

Our target here had been Snow Bunting and while a party of about 50 did alight on the beach they remained distant. With all optics now trained to seaward we saw a single Black-throated plus 9 Red-throated Divers, a Little Gull, a couple of Guillemot, a Razorbill and at long last an identifiable skien of Pink-footed Geese.

There was also a bonus Atlantic Grey Seal while looking back to landward 2 Marsh Harriers, 30 Ruff and a few Brent Geese. While D & M went to replenish their water supply, I attempted to see a gaggle of White-fronted Geese seen earlier in a field close to Holkum, meeting up with them again at Lady Ann's Drive. Now, I have alway been of the oppinion that Weymouth & Portland car parking charges were exobitant, but here they wany £2.00 for every hour. Greed on a grand scale I would venture, and 'killing the goose', so it will only be a Dodo that will drag me that way again.

Unfortunately, while walking to the George Washington Hide was when the weather broke, but in doing so we also recorded male Goldeneye, Little Grebe, Moorhen and Jay all worth seeing.

The photo doesn't quite capture the severity of the storm, but the wind picked up to at least 35 knots, the rain was torrential and all acconmanied by some thunder. During a lull I made a break for it and was glad to reach the sanctuary of my warm and snug 'garden shed' - you'll be glad you paid a visit!