Five, four, three, two...

The Safari started the New Year a fraction disappointed, well not really9Ish). We had hoped the first bird on our 2013 list would be the Peregrine on the tower but it didn't roost up there last night so we had to /make do' with the singing Robin at 06.10 when Frank had us up n at em...good job it was a dryish night last night so no head when we got out of bed!

As the day broke and the sun came up (yes that did happen today!) on the first dawn of the new year we pottered around doing a bit of brekkie and keeping an eye on the garden...the list started to grow nicely until it was time to start birding in earnest!

With a target of 125 to reach we went straight to the nature reserve and enjoyed a productive but slow walk round with dawdling Frank - why does his nose always want to go the 'wrong' way?

The Long Eared Owls were showing 'well' if you knew where to look. From the embankment we saw the Little Egret again...on the list before Grey Heron...how'd that happen? We saw the second Little Egret was in the scrape with a Grey Heron from the hide, the first time we've seen one on the reserve proper. This was where we discovered a camera malfunction or more like a human interfacing camera malfunction - no SD card in it! As luck would have it CR had a spare one which he very kindly lent us...popped it in the  camera to find the batteries had died. No probs spares in the pocket...oooohhhhh nooooo they were dud too. So no pics today...and it was sunny...aaaaarrrrggghhhh

A Buzzard soared up over the golf course and hit the notebook before Kestrel.

The Iceland Gull didn't put in appearance possibly because the nearby recycling sorting yard was closed today.

With Frank getting more and more tired we had to go home which was OK as it was getting towards lunchtime anyway and we could do a bit more garden watching in daylight this time.

After a few chores we were back out for a late afternoon/early evening owl-fest.

TS came in to the hide as we waited for for the Little Owl to pop up out of the knackered barn roof and we found him a Merlin blitzing through hot on the tail of a Starling which had a very narrow escape. If we are going to get 125 on the reserve this year we'll need a few more flukes like the Merlin over the next 12 months. Shudder to think how long it is since we last saw a Merlin there.

As the gloaming grew a Redwing flew over and then the Little Owl did what it's supposed to and came up through the broken roof to sit on the ridge. Wandering round to have a look at the Barn Owl box we were joined briefly by TS again P & K E and JP but not the owl! They all left and we stayed on hopefully. A Water Rail squealed and a Woodcock came out of the gloom and flew over the barn, at least seven Snipe flew over us from the reedbeds to feed in the flooded fields behind us but still no Barn Owl.

So how did we do in the end? Not too badly we reckon: 56 for the year (and Rabbit on the mammal list), 55 for the nature reserve (only 70 to get ;-) ) and 8 for the garden. 

Where to next? Patch 2 comes back into play tomorrow morning.

In the meantime let us know how you fared in your outback today.  
Oh and thanks to all our readers cos we spotted our 'hits counter' has passed the 100,000 mark...OK OK 2/3rds of them are ours checking back!