A day out year listing - now with pics

The safari apologises but these pics won't mean much until you've read the blurb below. No photoshop or nothing on these pics just cropped straight off the camera so sorry for any blurriness etc.

Can you spot the Ring Necked Duck in this general shot of the unfrozen part of the Mere?

The female of the species may be subtly more beautiful than the male!

Distant and blurry Long Tailed Tits.

The best Long Eared Owl shot with the 'normal' camera.

Too much hand shake digiscoping the same bird with the cheapo camera.

Best bird of the digiscopers day. A little pearler - literally!

The safari was making up a hot flask prior to picking up our Extreme Photographer before heading out to the nature reserve when news came through that the Ring Necked Duck had actually relocated there overnight! Pity we dashed off to tick it yesterday, but you can't be too careful. Our Extreme Photographer hadn't seen it yet anyway so off we went. In the garden while the flask was being prepared was a Song Thrush - a sure sign of some cold weather movement, they're as rare as rocking horse do-do at Base Camp.

A cracking day's birding/listing ensued. 39 species seen altogether at the nature reserve of which 22 were new - including the feral from the Zoo free flying Barnacle Geese - with three more over the road in the park but not the dipped Mediterranean Gull...b*gger - we got a tip off one was roosting on the ice but by the time we got there they had been flushed by hudge volumes of bread and all had moved around including some leaving to the nature reserve!

So what were the best birds of the day? Bittern for one, Long Eared Owls are always nice to see, the Cetti's Warblers (three of them) would neither sing nor show...b*gger. But the piece de resistance was...wait for it...a striking leucistic Black Headed Gull.

Where to next? Patch 1 shortly to check if the AWOL Peregrine has returned. Then Patch 2 to get some sea bird year ticks.

In the meantime let us know how your 2010 outback list is getting on - got a hundred on it yet? The safari is on 64 so far.

Pics tomorrow - sorry can't get on wifey's laptop to download them and this 'puter simply refuses to recognise cameras must be the dinosaur genes in it - 'intel inside' more like dimwit inside!