Monday 3 January 2011

And they're off!

BTO staff were out in force (well, at least 4 of them, anyway) on New Year's Day, eager to get the Nunnery Lakes 2011 bird list up and running. Mike Toms, Dave Leech, Dawn Balmer and Neil Calbrade all texted me their best offerings, which included Woodcock, Little Egret, Goosander, Little Grebe (infrequent on the reserve, especially when most of the lakes are under ice) and otter.

I returned from 'up north' to my house on the edge of the reserve late last night; no Tawny Owl to greet me so my first Lakes year ticks had to wait until this morning. An extensive tour of duty with Dave added a few things the team hadn't connected with over the weekend: Barn Owl, Nuthatch and the Pink-footed Goose that's been around for a couple of months - the latter a big relief as this would have been a difficult species to catch up with had this individual moved on as we feared it might.

My BirdTrack list for this morning totalled 52 species, exactly the same number Mike and Dave recorded on New Year's Day. The overall total will have to wait until Wednesday when I'm back in the office and can combine everyone's records but we must be up to 60 or thereabouts.

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