That's all Folks.

Hey up folks, well that's it for another twelve months. Tomorrow's a New year and that means a new note book(volume 31 i think) and the start of another years birdin' both locally and every now and then a bit further afield.

I managed to finish the year off with yet another site tick today, a male Ruddy Duck! Once a common sight at nearby Blithers in winter but now increasingly rare since the powers that be decided to blast every last one out of the water! Also present today were the imm' male Scaup, 19 Goosander, 1 Pintail and a single Green Sand'(Birdwatch Mag's Target Bird).

Birdin' highlights over the last twelve months have included five British Ticks:

Glaucous-winged Gull

Collared Fly'

Red-flanked Bluetail, 2 in a week after twenty years!

Brown Shrike

Gyr Falcon

Local highlights although many, haven't quite been on the same scale but include:

Meally Redpoll and Gropper@ work

Red Kite, Marsh Harrier and AVOCET @ Poxey

White-fronted and Dark-bellied Brent Geese @ Hales Hall

RB Merg, 2 Wood Sand's, 2 Barwits and 15 Blackwits, 2 Med Gulls, 2 Garganey, Bewicks Swan, Scaup and Ruddy Duck @ Utch.

And the rock n roll highlight as to be Kris Robertson, lead singer with Black Stone Cherry joining Nickelback on stage to raise the roof with a mind blowin' version of HIGHWAY TO HELL!!!!!

Absolute crippler! I lost me voice in one song, brilliant!!

Have a good un folks.

Utch and Brookers 0845-1140.

Bitterly cold today with almost constant rain, but thankfully none of the snow that was forecast.

Utch

Wigeon 220

Teal 10

Goosander 9

Scaup 1 1st winter male

Tufted Duck 14

Pochard 1

Brookers

Fudge Duck 1 bostin' adult male

Scaup 1 female, obviously the bird from Utch.

Interesting that the female Scaup as turned up at Brookers which is where i originally found the imm' male Scaup that is now at Utch. Obviously the birds are moving between the two sites, so hopefully the Fudge Duck will do the same!

Cheers

Andy.

Golden Balls Strikes Again!!!!!!!!

Hey up folks, all five of you!!! Where will it all end? Public ridicule and ignominy probably. After the excitement of the last couple of days at Utch i decided to take Mad Malc along with me yesterday just in case i found something really good, for an afternoon visit to this now nationally important wetland site( see Birdwatching Mag'). Spotting RP's motor i didn't hope to get first dibs on anything new. No sign of RP when we got to the main pool but then all the geese took off from the fields by the River Dove and so i assumed he had be rumbled while trying to stalk them in his Leopard like style. Not so though, i picked up a single Pinky as the geese crash landed onto the ice and then the previous days Scaup as well. RP then finally joined us and as he did i pulled out another Scaup, this time a female! Two in three days, brilliant! Feeling rather chuffed we decided to meet up at Brookers after RP had nipped home to switch off a light he'd left on and me and the Mad One had checked the JCB Lakes. What a mistake that was.

We got to Brookers at around three to find the man himself already there. As soon as we were insight RP yelled in totally uncharacteristic fashion " Oi!! Feast ya mince pies on this little beauty" thinking he'd got a diver or one of the rarer grebes i looked into his scope to find a Mallard!! "What?" i asked "can't you see it? said the lad whose voice was now trembling "Fudge Duck!". I looked again and there it was in all it's Ferruginous Glory, a male Ferruginous Duck. Yes i know what you're thinkin' but here in the birdin' wilderness Fudge Duck is a good find and we made the most of it. Fully winged and unringed to boot. If only we'd gone straight there the story would be completely different now but that's the beauty of this mad hobby of ours, you never know what's comin' next.

So after that all that was left to do was celebrate for the old lad with Captain Carlsberg and his merry men.

Have a good un.

Two in two days!

Hey up folks, hope you've all enjoyed the last couple of days? I've had two Utch year ticks in two days and Leeds won 3-1 at home to Hartlepool! Cripplin' views of a Barn Owl hunting from fencepost's yesterday and now a 1st winter drake Scaup which is also a site tick pour moi to boot. I managed to 'phone scope the owl but can't figure out how to load the image onto the old bupooter so i'll save it for another time.

Not being a fully paid up member of the avian paparazzi could be a problem from time to time but there's always google images for me to fall on( cheers RP).

Comin' back from Utch i gave the new Theory of a Dead Man album a good blast and it sounds pretty good. Well worth a listen. Hopefully they'll be doin' the UK soon, Wolvo, Brum or Manchester would go down nicely.

Andy.

Merry Crimbo Folks.

Merry Crimbo to my growing army of followers, all three of you.

No birdin' today due to the old festivities. It's a good job really after making my debut on Guitar Hero last night i woke up feeling like i'd been in the ring with Big Daddy, my legs were killing me . Trying to play a Dragonforce tune sober would be hard enough but after a few to many glugs of the old Danish Love Potion that is Carlsberg Export it was almost impossible! Never the less i gave it my all and brought out all the old classic air guitar poses aka Eddie Van Halen, Slash and co.

Hopefully i'll escape to Utch in the mornin' for a couple of hours around the old local patch. Fellow Utch regular RP had a Dark-bellied Brent on xmas eve last year which stuck around for a while and even took a trip to the Cheesedale mecca of Hales Hall during its stay.

Have a good un.

Andy.

It's here!!!!!!

It's here!!!!!Hey up folks, yes i know that's what you thought when you found this blog, but it's actually what my old salopian mucker and Mr Magoo lookalike Andy yelled as the juv' Gyr flew over our heads after five hours freezin' our knackers off in darkest Glamorgancestershire yesterday.

After showing quite well on Friday a'noon i had hoped that it would be a doddle. Just stroll up and and tick, you know the score. In fact we ended up spending nearly eight hours for two brief but good enough views. We missed the first flyby after we decided to check out the cliffs at Worms Head. Almost as soon we got out of the car a couple of local lads pulled up and told us that the bloody thing had just flown over where we'd spent the last four hours. A rapid hobble back to the car followed by a bit of dodgy drivin' in my "reasonably priced car" down a bridle path, ended up with us back where we would have seen the bird from if only we.........

Needless to say the long Journey home went a lot faster than than if we'd dipped, especially with a bit of Theory of a Dead Man blasting out and the thought of that first celebratory pint of Grolsch as i watched MOTD.

After a patchy 20 year history as far as Twitching go's i've finally connected with a very special bird. Not the best views, but the sheer power of the bird as it chased corvids along a distant hillside was awe inspiring! Incredibly it moved faster, and with far less effort than moi when i'm on the old slog iron and late for work.

Not a bad way to kick off what i hope you will find an enjoyable read, but beware! If you just want to read about birds you'll disappointed. Remember the title and you'll get some idea of what i'm about, birdin' with a bit of humour, a pint or two and a whole lot of rock 'n' roll inbetween.

Cheers.