Foot It ends for Another Year

Managed my final visit to the Foot It patch today and that's it for January 2014 and added a meagre two additional species to this years efforts which can be harshly but very fairly summed up  abjectly poor.

 

BH Gull - on the rare occasion the sun came out!

 

I failed and my efforts were pretty much ruined by the weather.  Far too wet, river ridiculously high and exceedingly mild.

 

 

 

 

I had predicted what I thought was a fairly respectable and highly achievable target of 69 species however have fallen someway sort of that mark although have picked up four bonus species; Sparrowhawk (which was somehow missed off my predicted target), Yellowhammer, Snipe and Jack Snipe.  Neither of the latter species were found by me - thanks go to my terrific Clumber Spaniel - Luna.

 

Last year was a much better winter for the patch with cold weather, snow, lots of Waxwings (including in the garden) and all my wildfowl predictions picked up pretty much in the first couple of days.  Woodcock were also pretty easy (again found by Luna) with many found along the River Derwent and one in a ditch on the local rough grassland fields.

 

With time spent working away from home as well as on the PatchWork Challenge patch have both limited the number of Foot It visits to 5 in January.

 

 

Final scores are  53/69 predicted species plus the aforementioned four bonuses.

List is shown below:

	Species	Date		Species	Date
1	Mute Swan	01/01	26	Jay	03/01
2	Greylag Goose	19/01	27	Jackdaw	01/01
3	Canada Goose	01/01	28	Rook	03/01
	Gadwall	NR	29	Carrion Crow	01/01
4	Teal	19/01	30	Goldcrest	01/01
5	Mallard	01/01	31	Blue Tit	01/01
6	Pochard	01/01	32	Great Tit	01/01
7	Tufted Duck	01/01	33	Coal Tit	01/01
8	Goosander	01/01		Skylark	NR
	Red-legged Partridge	NR	34	Long-tailed Tit	01/01
9	Pheasant	03/01		Waxwing	NR
10	Cormorant	01/01		Nuthatch	NR
11	Grey Heron	01/01	35	Treecreeper	01/01
	Little Grebe	NR	36	Wren	01/01
12	Great Crested Grebe	11/01	37	Starling	01/01
13	Buzzard	11/01	38	Blackbird	01/01
14	Kestrel	27/01	39	Fieldfare	01/01
	Peregrine	NR	40	Song Thrush	01/01
	Water Rail	NR	41	Redwing	01/01
15	Moorhen	01/01	42	Mistle Thrush	01/01
16	Coot	01/01	43	Robin	01/01
	Woodcock	NR	44	Dunnock	01/01
17	Black-headed Gull	01/01	45	House Sparrow	01/01
18	Common Gull	01/01		Grey Wagtail	NR
	Lesser Black-backed Gull	NR	46	Pied Wagtail	01/01
19	Herring Gull	01/01		Meadow Pipit	NR
20	Feral Pigeon	01/01	47	Chaffinch	03/01
21	Stock Dove	03/01	48	Greenfinch	01/01
22	Woodpigeon	01/01	49	Goldfinch	01/01
23	Collared Dove	01/01		Siskin	NR
	Little Owl	NR	50	Linnet	01/01
	Kingfisher	NR	51	Lesser Redpoll	19/01
	Green Woodpecker	NR	52	Bullfinch	01/01
24	Great Spotted Woodpecker	11/01	53	Reed Bunting	11/01
25	Magpie	01/01
	Additional Species
	Sparrowhawk	01/01		Jack Snipe	19/01
	Snipe	11/01		Yelllowhammer	27/01

            NR – Not Recorded

Notable absentees included Gadwall - usually up to 20 on my patch of the Derwent in January, Waxwing (although pretty much absent from most of the UK this winter).  Siskin - again usually guaranteed in the Alders on the river but alas not this year.  No Green Woodpeckers, LBB Gull or Grey Wagtail - suspect the latter due to high river levels and the one that was in the garden last year.  I could go on but its pretty obvious from the list above.

 

This is not the end for the Foot It walks so the list will continue to be kept over the course of the year and I will update / post pics here and on Twitter and here's hoping to a proper January next year (cold and snowy and a few more birds). 

 

Other option is to set my targets much lower for 2015!!