Raven - an unexpected patch tick

 A new species for the patch this afternoon and quite unexpected  - Raven!

The circumstances were quite fortuitous. I was on the patch for work this afternoon. Our wonderful Coast Care team were working on behalf of National Trust, doing some coppicing in the bushes and I popped down to meet them and thank them for their hard work. After they left I had a quick look on the sea,  a very late lunch-break. A black-throated diver was way to the south, a great northern diver flew south and a couple of great crested grebes were on the sea - all good stuff. I got a call from Mark Whittingham to say that he had found a white-fronted goose, probably a Greenland race bird, in the pink-footed flock in the front-field at the farm. 

I'd noticed the PFG flock on my way to meet the team and did think they would be worth a look through. 

When I got there, the light was awful, looking straight into the setting sun, but I picked up the white-front in the flock. The bill looked orange, but not a 'huge carrot' and the legs looked stout and orange so I assumed Greenland race, but the light was dreadful.

I scanned through the pink foots further south, into better light, looking for something different, and I found something completely different! A huge corvid in amongst the geese, it looked almost as big as the geese! Raven surely. It was facing away but when it turned it's head, the huge deep bill confirmed it as a full patch tick. Species 253 for the patch. 

The brute

digi-scoped record shots

Not a species I was expecting to see, but maybe it should have been more on my radar? The range is increasing and they're breeding on the coast further north from us now. Janet saw one recently at Snab Point, so maybe this was the same bird?

It was quite funny, as when I had been with the Coast Care team earlier, one of them was using a pair of loppers that sounded like the 'cronk' of a raven, which caught me out a couple of times. I mentioned to him that raven would be a new bird for the patch  - little did I know what was to come!

Photos of the white-fronted goose circulated by Mark are inconclusive so it might be 'un-raced' until I get a better look. hopefully on the bird race tomorrow.

Tradition dictates

Tradition dictates that on my first visit to the patch of the year, I'll find a species that I hadn't seen on the patch in the previous year. This happens most years. And guess what? It happened again today.

I've not seen yellowhammer on the patch since 24th November 2019 so to find a flock of eight in the hedge behind Druridge Farm was a real surprise.  I was beginning to think that they were locally extinct.

Today was unseasonably mild, 12 degrees C, but it was very windy from the SW. Janet and I had a good wander around the patch and managed to see 53 species in total. Highlights included a southbound great northern diver offshore, two woodcock flushed from the bushes, at least 300 Linnet and 200 chaffinch in the dunes and eight stock doves.

There was a lot of people though. It was like a July Sunday with cars abandoned at the site entrance and hundreds of people on the beach. 

The beach was busier than it looks in this photo!

The ringed plover flock that roosts on the beach at the south of the patch had no chance to settle and just flew back and forth, looking to rest. 

Ringed Plovers looking for somewhere to rest - no chance today.

I finished 2021 on a credible 167 species for the patch, which, given how poor an autumn it was wasn't too bad. Usual autumn stuff like pied and spotted flycatchers, garden warber, yellow-browed warbler, redstart and whinchat all missing from my list.

I also concentrated a bit more on the 5km patch challenge because of covid-lockdown. I saw 191 species within 5km of home which was nine more than the next patches. Ellington is obviously a good place to live if you're a birder. I'll continue with the 5km challenge this year as it does add a bit of variety to my birding.

I'm hoping to keep the blog updated more regularly too. My work/life balance needs some adjustment I think.

Today's list on eBird

Passing Curlew