Hi everyone, i just joined the community after being 18 last month! Thought I would share my local patch with you.
My local patch is a small area along the sea wall in Essex, as the Crow flies it's just 2 miles from my house.
You can see the area it covers here
The area is surprisingly good for birds and it's only 1 1/2 miles along the sea wall from the town. Winter 2011 up to Spring 2012 my patch held up to 3 Short-eared Owls which made for great watching, sadly this past winter they didn't show up, I'm hoping they'll be back this Autumn. Also last year we had a surprise Gannet turn up and we also had a Purple Sandpiper which turned out to be the first one for the town for the last 10 years. This year I am doing a Patch List, so far I'm up to 78 bird species. Here's a quick summary of this year so far:
January: 51 species added in the first month, biggest surprise was a Whooper and 2 Bewick's Swans that swam down river and then flew back up again.
February: I only visited my local patch once in February and added 2 to the list.
March: 2 visits producing 6 birds for the list. Grey Partridge was new for me on the patch, they appeared while I was watching a Barn Owl that I hadn't seen on my patch since December 2011.
April: Only one visit but that's all I needed, I got lucky with my first ever Osprey that flew straight over me, I got very excited about that one. I also managed to add a few summer migrants like Yellow Wagtail and Whitethroat, 6 added to the list.
May: 3 visits and 11 species added, possibly the biggest surprise of the year was a Black-winged Stilt that was found by another birder, had to rush out to see that one. Another surprise was a Long-eared Owl that I managed to find after it had been reported earlier in the week. Hobby and Cuckoo added too.
June: So far I've only been once and added 2 to the list.
I'll post updates every now and then and keep you updated on my progress!
Tom
Twitter Website
Hi Tom and welcome to the group. You can see from your pictures that is has brought your two loves together in photography and bird watching. The pictures are outstanding and I look forward to seeing a lot more in the future.
Thank you.
Only one visit to the patch in September, on the 27th. I managed to finally add Peregrine to the patch list which was a huge female who put all the Wigeon up but just kept flying passed. Also add Blue Tit to the list which was nice for a coastal site. Other birds around were Greenshank, Wigeon, Lapwing, Curlew and a single Grey Plover on the estuary. Apart from the Peregrine, other birds of prey were a female Marsh Harrier and at least 3 Kestrels. It was also nice to see 2 Snipe, if only in flight.