Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Hello,

Thank you to everyone who has been viewing my blog over the past year. This year has been excellent for birds but I have had my personal ups and downs. I am trying to concentrate on the positives which include:

• Making some great new friends, for example, Eleanor Morrison who I met at the beginning of the year at Stanwick Lakes who I now do a lot of my birding with in and out of the county and who has helped me a lot this year but really there is a long list of young birders who I have made friends with but to name a few they include Paddy Lewin, George Dunbar, Ellie Zantboer, Harry Witts, Frank Osterberg, you all know who you are if you read my blog ha ha. 
• Twitching this year has been fantastic, I have reached my end of year target of 250 birds on my life list which was the Dusky Thrush in Beeley which I saw with a couple of my friends Ben Moyes and Toby Carter. 
• Young Birder of the Year competition in September at Spurn was fantastic. I didn't win but I lost to good competition, George Dunbar, who I am now incredibly good friends with and I think that competition really helped start that friendship off. I have also been to Spurn in October and with a bit of scrolling you can find the post I did on that.
• Doing the Patchwork Challenge this year for Pitsford Reservoir has been great. It has really made me focus on the beautiful outdoors I have on my door step. I really have enjoyed doing this and rivalling with my friends over the year. It gives you a massive high finding a good bird on your patch which you have spent so long on. The highlight for me this year has to be Honey Buzzard but others include Black Tern, Glaucous Gull, Goshawk.

That has just been some of the highlights of my year and I would like to thank everyone that has contributed to it in making it one of my best years. 

Now back to the present, today I was at Pitsford Reservoir south of the causeway, doing my rounds and I found a 1st calendar year Caspian Gull in the Narrows while I was searching for the Slavonian Grebe which was 200 metres east of the Holly tree. Other birds seen today include a Kingfisher, a Raven and a male Stonechat.

Merry Christmas, 

Jacob

Slavonian Grebe

Gadwall

Kestrel

Dusky Thrush

Hello,

Today was spent on a twitch for a rare Thrush from Siberia called a Dusky Thrush. After a few hours of waiting the bird finally showed in the back fields of the village Beeley where this bird has taken up residence over the last 6 days. Then once it disappeared for about an hour and a half, myself, Toby Carter and Ben Moyes found ourselves in prime position at the orchard. The bird had flown into the Orchard without us realising until it started to feed on apples which had fallen onto the floor. Luckily, Toby and Sam had a saved me a nice spot at the front to get the pictures shown at the bottom. The bird, then showed again for a longer period of time at the back fields while it was preening in a tree.

Other birds around were a Crossbill, 20+ Siskin, a Raven, two Grey Wagtails, two Dippers and a Goshawk. Lots of common woodland birds were seen throughout the day including regular Great Spotted Woodpeckers, Nuthatches and Marsh Tits.

Regards,

Jacob

Dusky Thrush

Ben Moyes - https://twitter.com/Ben_Moyes16

Toby Carter - https://twitter.com/TobyWarbler