{"id":25031,"date":"2019-01-18T16:10:59","date_gmt":"2019-01-18T16:10:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.simplybirdsandmoths.co.uk\/sbam\/?p=25031"},"modified":"2019-01-18T16:11:06","modified_gmt":"2019-01-18T16:11:06","slug":"2019-kicks-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.simplybirdsandmoths.co.uk\/sbam\/2019-kicks-off\/","title":{"rendered":"2019 Kicks Off"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

My birding year kicked off with a day at Rutland Water in Leicestershire. Some good birds were seen during the day including 2 juvenile Shag; a Red-necked, 2 Slavonian and 2 Black-necked Grebes; a Great Northern Diver; a drake American Wigeon; 5 Smew; a female Scaup; a Jack Snipe and a Snow Bunting. The year list was on 69 at the end of the day<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Juvenile Shags<\/strong> off the dam wall at Rutland Water – January 1st<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Snow Bunting <\/strong>off the dam wall at Rutland Water – January 1st<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Snow Bunting<\/strong> off the dam wall at Rutland Water – January 1st<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Various trips to my local patch at Staunton Harold Reservoir helped to get my site year list off the ground and at the same time added a few year ticks. The highlights being 5 Gadwall; a Little Egret; a Grey Wagtail; Goldcrest; Filedfare; Redwing and Long-tailed Tit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On 5th January I made a visit to Welney Wildfowl Reserve in Norfolk. A superb day with lots of Whooper Swan; small numbers of Bewick Swan; a drake Ring-necked Duck and over 400 Black-tailed Godwit roosting on one of the mere islands. A small flock of Tree Sparrow were on the feeders by the cafe and there were well over 700 Pochard in front of the main hide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A pair of Bewick Swan<\/strong> – Welney, Norfolk – January 5th<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Bewick Swan<\/strong> – Welney, Norfolk – January 5th<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Pochard<\/strong> – a drake – Welney, Norfolk – January 5th<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Pochard<\/strong> – a drake – Welney, Norfolk – January 5th<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Ring-necked Duck<\/strong> – a drake – Welney, Norfolk – January 5th<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Whooper Swan<\/strong> – Lots on the reserve at Welney – January 5th<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Whooper Swan portrait<\/strong> – Welney, Norfolk – January 5th<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Whooper Swan <\/strong>– a pair – Welney, Norfolk – January 5th<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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A typical winter scene at Welney, Norfolk – January 5th<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On 6th January I went back to the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust Reserve at Willington, to try my luck again with the Kingfisher. A few more year ticks were picked up, in addition to Kingfisher, with Cetti’s Warbler; Water Rail; Common SNipe and Reed Bunting<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Kingfisher<\/strong> – male – note the all black bill – January 6th<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Kingfisher<\/strong> – male – January 6th<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A Dusky Warbler had been discovered at nearby Kingsbury Water Park in Warwickshire. Only a 45 minute drive from home so worth making the effort to see this Siberian warbler. Usually only seen in autumn as a rare migrant, so one inland is a real MEGA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was typically skulking and despite good views through the binoculars, I never did get a photo of it. A fine drake Red-crested Pochard on one of the lakes was some compensation. My year list was on 99.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Red-crested Pochard – drake – Kingsbury Water Park – January 7th<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Red-crested Pochard – drake – Kingsbury Water Park – January 7th<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My birding year kicked off with a day at Rutland Water in Leicestershire. Some good birds were seen during the day including 2 juvenile Shag; a Red-necked, 2 Slavonian and 2 Black-necked Grebes; a Great Northern Diver; a drake American Wigeon; 5 Smew; a female Scaup; a Jack Snipe and a Snow Bunting. The year […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[655,18,654,172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-655","category-birds","category-birdsof2019","category-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.simplybirdsandmoths.co.uk\/sbam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.simplybirdsandmoths.co.uk\/sbam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.simplybirdsandmoths.co.uk\/sbam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.simplybirdsandmoths.co.uk\/sbam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.simplybirdsandmoths.co.uk\/sbam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.simplybirdsandmoths.co.uk\/sbam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25031\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.simplybirdsandmoths.co.uk\/sbam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.simplybirdsandmoths.co.uk\/sbam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.simplybirdsandmoths.co.uk\/sbam\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}