Saturday 6 January 2018

6/7 Jan 18 - First weekend of the year

Saturday was spent trying to catch up on a few jobs around the cottage, but I kept one eye on the garden and had the ground trap set to do some ringing if the opportunity arose.

Weather-wise it was dry, generally cloudy with the odd sunny interlude and the wind was decreasing from North-West as it backed round to the West.

It was fairly quiet in the garden with my usual female Blackbird, a few House Sparrows and Starlings and mixed flock of Rock Doves and feral pigeons. I also saw two Robins, I know it was two as one was ringed and the other wasn't, and also the male Pheasant was back.

However, I managed to add two new species to my 2018 Burray list in the form of eight Greenfinches and a Wren.

On one of the fields the other side of my paddock there was another gathering of Common Gulls and a quick scan of the cliffs on the North side of Echnaloch Bay had 60+ Fulmars up a bit on the count a couple of days ago.

Sunday was spent doing a few outdoor jobs until the cold got the better of me and I retreated indoors to do some other jobs. Again my ground trap was set and I managed to catch the ringed female Blackbird and confirmed that I ringers her back in March 2016 when she was a youngster. The only other bird caught was a female Greenfinch.

Other birds in the garden today were 12 Starlings, four House Sparrows, a Wren, the male Pheasant and a Robin. In the fields around the cottage there were 50+ Common Gulls and two Hooded Crows.

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