Happy New Year!

Hello

And yet another year comes to an end! I'd only just acclimatized to the year 2022 and tomorrow it's 2023!

For me it's been a busy year with the number of tours now back at the pre-pandemic stage and with plenty in the diary for 2023 too. The downside is that I spend relatively little time in the county these days and combined with ringing activities and other allied interests my county-related birding is somewhat lean. However being a WeBS counter, conducting other surveys and an avid bird feeder it means I'm still immersed in my birds and other wildlife but it is very rare day indeed when I go out simply to go birding!

Today I returned back from an eight day Naturetrek tour to southern Portugal entitled 'The Algarve at Christmas'. This was my first ever tour back in 2013 and I look back with fondness at the nine Christmas periods I have spent out there generally in very good weather and seeing quality birds and in good numbers. Just like here things have changed and some birds are more difficult to see and some have become easier. Trends seem to accelerate with our influence and it's generally tough to find Little Bustards these days but this Christmas we found four species of eagle wintering in the area as well as Little Bitterns and increasing numbers of hirundines and warblers and Ring Ouzels. I've formatted a few images from this month's tour and they are on the Tab or Page entitled 'The Algarve at Christmas 2022'.

Eleanor tells me the only birds she managed to see of note today were one hundred and eighty Golden Plovers at Harrington Airfield and I note that Jon was able to confirm that at least one of the Yellow-browed Warblers was still present at Mary's Lake, Earls Barton Pits this afternoon. Two Caspian Gulls were in the roost at Stanford Reservoir this afternoon plus a Green Sandpiper was present and an excellent nine Smew (seven drakes) were at Eyebrook Reservoir just across the border.

A very big thank-you to the regular contributors to this blog - reporting details of birds and their activities, interesting sightings and of course plenty of images and some video too. Your support is very-much valued.

We wish you all a very Happy New Year!

Neil and Eleanor

Grey Heron courtesy
of Robin Gossage.