Don't Look Back in Anger - OASIS

 "I Hear You Say"

         First and foremost we would wish all our Loyal Followers a Healthy and Heartfelt        

HAPPY NEW YEAR 

and Thanks for being there as this would be nothing without you. All the BEST!

It has been something of an Up and Down Year, but we won't dwell on that, but good enough to publish a list of addtions and decent finds across our Recording Area.

On the Bird Front there were but 2 additions, bringing the List Total to 125, but what 'crackers' and with both totally unpredicted so unexpected!

TURTLE DOVE
(and to qualify 'heard' only) along with a

LONG-EARED OWL

only seen by one observer but perfectly described. Some of the what might be considered as 'better species' included:-

JACK SNIPE

HOBBY

WATER RAIL

MEDITERRANEAN GULLs

RED KITE

FIRECREST

YELLOWHAMMER
just a single sighting of this now 'rare' bird hereabouts!

MANDARIN DUCK
with no signs of breeding as in one previous year.

LESSER WHITETHROAT

WOODLARK
with good numbers of young showing on the Heath.

SHELDUCK
unusually only c2 sightings.

NIGHTJAR

LESSER SPOTTED WOODPECKER
with still no active nest hole found.

MARSH TIT
all but extinct here now.

WRYNECK
for a 4th consecutive year and a second 4 x Woodpecker species day.

LITTLE OWL
but still no signs of continuing breeding, while

SIKA DEER
found by Dave Foot was the only mammal added to the list,
and as for Insect Life there were but c4 species added to the existing list

EARLY MOTH

BLACKNECK

PORTER'S RUSTIC
and

BLOXWORTH SNOUT
with the first record in Great Britain being from that village in Dorset hence the name and bringing the all time total to 374 species of Macro's. All else came from a very few wanderings outside of the county and amounted to

BAIRD'S SANDPIPER
(Siberia, North and South America)

NORTHERN MOCKINGBIRD
(U.S.A. Mexico and Canada)

TWO-BARRED WARBLER
(Northern Mongolia, Manchuria and Siberia)

WHITE-TAILED LAPWING
(Iran, Iraq, Russia, North Africa, India and Middle East)

The intent for 2022 will be to publish all species of Wildlife that comes our way across the year!

What's Another Year - Johnny Logan

By the time we publish our next Post the year will be well and truly over for sure, but we still have one in the locker just to bid farewell to a none to shabby 2021.

Once again it was

"an orangy sky, always with some other guy. It's just a broken lullaby, bye bye Love, bye bye Love".

from The Cars eponomous debut album The Cars 

Between this image and the next Sky shot came something of a miracle in the form of only our second ever, across the garden, or even the southern section of our patch a

WOODCOCK,
a borrowed image,

followed by more minor wonders from the Moth Traps including

WINTER MOTH
only the second of the year after the first trapped on the 10/01/2021.

SILVER Y
a brace of

DECEMBER MOTHs

along with the tiniest of Slug and

SNAIL

racing along at the

Only Pace it Knows.

At the main pond the only thing to delay us was the local female

KESTREL
in the continuing gloom while up north the

MOORS RIVER
now looks to be in full spate which hopefully, given the continuing heavy rain,
will soon metamorphose into Water Meadows and the usual attraction for more
WILDFOWL.

At the Sewerage Works this

WOOD PIGEON
was snooped upon while having a Bath 'n' Dhobie until a second minor miracle occured as the Herdsman showed up to repatriate the 2 escapee

BELTED GALLOWAY
(maybe a minor miracal on its own)

but had we not stopped for a CHAT (no pun intended) the likelihood of spotting this lone

BLACK REDSTART

may never have happened?
This bird being of the Chat family.
Finally, the mirical of them all as considering it safe to make only my second visit to a 'brand new human being', to whom I have been given the Highest Honour of being Uncle Bagsy!!!!

DYLAN
seen here with Dad Loz and named after BOB himself

Once upon a time you dressed so fine,

threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn't you?
People call say “beware doll, you're bound to fall”,
you thought they were all kidding you.
You used to laugh about,
everybody that was hanging out.

and with Mum Chloe (once one of my Moth Appretices - Be Back Soon) and UNCLE Bagsy!

Now you don't talk so loud, now you don't seem so proud,
about having to be scrounging your next meal.

How does it feel?, How does it feel?
To be without a home, like a complete unknown,

like a rolling stone!

Also in attendance his older brother Ethan who had arrived to open his 'C' word gifts which, as can be seen, amounted to a full James Bond wardrobe.
That picture is oh so clear as back in 1962 after the showing of the first Bond film Dr. No and as a raw Boy Seaman there was never a chance of seeing me withoutsipping a

Vodka Martini -
Shaken not Stirred
always packing a

Walther PPK
and when asked my name it was simply
"Bond, James Bond"

but you can call me Premium!

Bitter Suite - Marillion

 With nothing in the Moth Traps other than a most nifty

NURSURY WEB SPIDER
one of the arachnids that bucks the trend of spinning a web, relying entirely on its own speed and agility to capture its prey, which was not the only one bucking the trend.

A spider wanders aimlessly within the warmth of a shadow
Not the regal creature of border caves
But the poor, misguided, directionless familiar
Of some obscure Scottish poet

Masked up like a Rag Man's Trumpet we left the Recording Area behind in favour of Longham, where the lakes are close to the general public as Bird Flu had struck. Fortunately, the adjoining footpath to the Hampreston Water Meadows is still open and the gateway to almost a dozen

WHITE-FRONTED GEESE

a borrowed image to emphisis the point

along with the reasonably long staying

WHOOPER SWAN
Apart from Greylag, Egyptian, Canada and often many hundreds of overwintering Brent
'Geese' are at something of a premium this far south so well worth the short drive.
Back to base and more Tales of the Unexpected as we found this

STONECHAT
in the southern reaches of our area

an occurance that has only been noted once before from thereabouts!
Otherwise, it would seem, the

CORMORANTs

have re-established thier Winter Roost on the distant pylons
as one of the local

PIED WAGTAIL

foraged for survival at the dung heap.
Without expectation the day ended almost as excitingly as it had begun during a dusk stroll along our beat of the River Stour where this

BARN OWL

was quartering the banks.

The mist crawls from the canal
Like some primordial phantom of romance
To curl under a cascade of neon pollen
While I sit tied to the phone like an expectant father
Your carnation will rot in a vase

Marillion