New Year off with a Bang.

Did the traditional 1st of January birding today, though due to a late/early finish to New Year celebrations I didn't get out till almost 11! Starling was my first bird of the year for the record.

The dog walk was fairly quiet at first, however it soon picked up with Mistle Thrush, Lesser Redpoll and 20 Brambling in amongst a flock of Greenfinch, Chaffinch, Goldfinch and Linnet.  All this before I'd had Robin or Wren!

After lunch I went down to North Duffield Carrs to see what was doing. It turned out to be fairly productive.  There was a female-type Marsh Harrier flying around for a bit before it went North up the valley (pics below).  There was  14 Whooper Swan stood out on the riverbank (the water levels had actually increased on yesterdays levels!) along with the usual wildfowl and waders (47+ Pochard, 2 Tufted Duck, 1 male Shoveler, 4 Pintail).

Ollie and Chris joined the crowd in the hide mid-afternoon and it wasn't long before I picked up a gull coming in towards the hide at a tight angle, I could make out that it was a 'white-winger' although the light wasn't great on it, luckily it came towards us and so we nipped out of the back of the hide and caught it as it carried on heading southeast. It was with a Herring Gull. I managed to get a couple of images as record-shots but I think you can just about make it out (heavy crops below)! Was having camera difficulties today. It was larger than the Herring Gull, fairly deep chested with a long bill that appeared pinkish with a dark tip! Unfortunately it didn't drop onto the reserve and just kept going, presumably towards the River Humber.

About an hour later an adult Yellow-legged Gull briefly dropped onto the riverbank but before I could get the camera on it everything took off, I didn't see what caused the disturbance, but whatever it was it was effective! With the large number of Black-headed Gulls and Common Gull roosting on the site I was hoping it would come in and join them, but there was only 2 Herring and 3 Great Black-backed Gulls in by the time I left amongst the thousands of smaller gulls.

A Little Grebe put in a brief appearance on the other side of the river, but was sticking close to the edge for the majority of the time. Two male and a female Bullfinch around the bird feeder was a nice surprise.

I ended the day on 50 species. Not bad from 4 hours of not really doing much or going very far!

Marsh Harrier putting everything up!

Marsh Harrier putting everything up!

Marsh Harrier putting everything up!

Glaucous Gull flying through (big crop of image)

Glaucous Gull flying through (big crop of image)

Glaucous Gull flying through (big crop of image)

Glaucous Gull flying through (big crop of image)

Glaucous Gull flying through (big crop of image)

Review of 2012 will come over the next few days when I can't do any actual birding!

Tim got 174 species in the York Area during 2012 so I've only got 125 species to go to beat that. EASY!