Ooohh almost got the set

The Safari left Base Camp to a rather spectacular sunrise this morning. What a way to start our Winter Thrushes survey.

We combined our survey with our Foot It challenge this morning...a birding double-wammy.

It took a while for the birds to wake up but once we reached our survay start point they didn't disappoint with most of the 'usual' suburban species putting in an appearance.

Moorhens wont be on everyone's suburban list though and the first pond had no fewer than five of them.

The usual Blackbirds were in the usual places but walking in to the cemetery we had a pleasant surprise when in the distance by the main entrance we heard a Song Thrush (72) singing.

Before we got to the far gate a solitary Fieldfare flew over. Compared to the visits do far this survey was proving to be top dollar! The Blackbirds continued to make the survey sheet. Crossing the road a flock of Long Tailed Tits were in the trees where we often see Blackbirds but the berries are all gone now. Having said that all the thrushes seen feeding were been looking for worms or grubs in the sopping wet ground.

The houses that have the bulk of the round's House Sparrows kept their promise but half way through our count a male Sparrowhawk sped through and landed on one of the nearby TV aerials - count aborted!

Sopping was the only description we could have given to the footy field - water polo might be a more appropriate game on there at the moment. In the trees at the far end we caught a glimpse of a thrush landing in the top-most branches but it was obscured by a thick limb, moving round a better view conformed it to be a Mistle Thrush. Shame we didn't get a Redwing to complete the set but they have been very scarce round here this season. 

Tallying up we now have 25 species on our Foot It total. Good job the coast is just within range although anything more than a hundred yards offshore will be 'out of the mile radius' - can they still be counted???

Almost the whole of the rest of the day was spent in the digital cutting room editing and splicing footage for a TV project we were invited to join. Well the cutting and splicing didn't prove to be too difficult but saving and uploading the project took the best part of six hours almost an hour for every minute of film! At least we had a poorly Kids North West for Twitter company to compare our garden bird list with - think she got more species than we got individuals, very quiet in the garden this arvo.

We were hoping for a speicif species for a photo but it never showed - maybe a next weekend.

So no pics today apart from the sunrise.

Where to next? Back to work tomorrow so expect a shed load of Patch 2 stuff.

In the meantime let us know who's on foot in your outback.