how does your garden (list) grow...

Apologies for our tardiness, but a combination of things to do and the freezing conditions have kept us away from birding as much as we would like. However, we have had some great moments since our last blog, including a cracking close overhead adult goshawk at the Clettwr - one of those rare times when straight away you know theres no mistaking it for a sparrowhawk. A couple of brief trips to the Leri have produced great views of quartering hen harriers, as well as merlin, red kite and sparrowhawk, which included seeing a female take a starling in flight by the boatyard. Other than raptors, fairly quiet - still good numbers of scoter at Borth, with g c grebes and the odd r t diver. Yesterday we got up close to a couple of hundred golden plover at Ynyslas in a brief snow shower.

On Monday morning as Steffi was returning from a nights lambing, a barn owl drifted across her path near Cors Dyfi.
Good news from the garden - 4 new additions to the list, with 3 on one day. On Sunday,much anticipated, a lone common snipe showed itself when a low flying buzzard drew it out of deep cover and into view, before it headed off into the rush grass to hide itself away. Also, again much hoped for, not just a stonechat finally got on the list, but 4 in one day, 2 male, 2 female. Three skylark completed the triumviate of newbies on that good day, with a hunting merlin on Monday boosting the tally. The reason we saw most of these was because we were keeping track of the large numbers of redwing, fieldfare and mistle thrush that have been moving through the valley this week.
Another garden visitor of note concerns the badger that has taken a liking to the overspill from our bird feeders, and is now relishing the peanut butter treats we put out nightly for it. Hopefully Steffi will be able to get a photo soon.