25th January

The floods are a nice large size at present without being so big that they're hard to bird. It's been very "birdy" over the last few days with lots of ducks and gulls to look through. The four (or sometimes five) DUNLIN are still with us, hanging out with the Lapwings. Talking of which, there was a huge count (by Meadow standards) of these lovely plovers this evening with several hundred of them gracing the floods. Scattered in amongst them were a few Golden Plover, the first that I've seen this year though others have already seen them. In amongst the usual ducks were three drake PINTAIL and there were two SHELDUCK present today as well. The gull roost has been reasonably big and with both Iceland and Glaucous Gulls having been seen in the county as well as a few Caspians there's lots to look out for at present though sadly I didn't turn up anything unusual this evening. The pick of the sightings today was a PEREGRINE resting on the grass in the Hinterland between making various passes low over the birds on the flood.

Distant resting Peregrine

The only other news is that I managed to add Coal Tit to the Patch Year List by virtue of a bird in amongst a mixed feeding flock down near the car park. To the north, Adrian Grey reported three TUFTED DUCK on the Gullet pond up in Wolvercote.

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