Jan. 2nd and 3rd.

On the 2nd I managed another walk round with my wife, which takes in a couple hop fields, a real rarity these days, and some established orchards, the orchards were full of thrushes, maybe several hundred each of Fieldfare and Redwing, there were also 100-150 Starlings, eventually I also managed to find 1 Waxwing sitting in the top of a birch. Once at the castle the second raptor of the year appeared in the shape of one of the resident Kestrels (55) soon after this 3 Gulls headed north-east one of which was a Great Black Backed (56) and the other 2 were Lesser Black Backed (57) which completed the set of gulls I would expect to see this year as Med. Gull is just less than annual at the moment. The final bird to be added to my list today was a Brambling (58) which was in a flock of about 50 Chaffinches. We haven't had many finch flocks apart from the good Siskin numbers, so this was a nice addition. Onto the 3rd and a 7 o'clock start, another Tawny Owl called at first light and a brief foray into Roundshill Wood (part of the National Trust estate) didn't produce the Woodcock I was hoping for but the Marsh Tits were being very vocal and and a single Cormorant (59) flew over the woods. After making my way along the stream which produced the big flock of 100+ Siskins, I got a call from Stephen he had just located a Water Rail on the top lake, luckily I was heading that way and found it again nearby, number 60 for the year and it was only the 3rd Jan. I later picked up a Feral Dove/Pigeon (61) which I'm always in two minds about counting but there it is.