Good Patch Start 2/1/2012

Final day off before the return to the daily grind. A strange fiery ball was rising in a an unfamiliar blue sky. So today a chance to boost the year list, and see what my local patch had to offer. The Redwings that had been prominent of late were nowhere to be seen, but one of the local populations of House Sparrow greeted me as I headed towards Forge Pool, where I was able to clock a Teal pootling about through the branches that hide much of it.
Then, a immediate result, 5 Lesser Redpoll (see pic)  feeding along the side of the Green, a patch tick !!
Anyone who regularly covers an unremarkable local patch will appreciate how pleasing it is to add a new species to a small patch list. I was dead chuffed to add Little Grebe a week earlier ,my fist addition to the patch since August, these things are hard to get. I Spent a while trying to get some sort of decent record of this historic event.
Ladies Pool was Goosanderless,but as well as the usual BHG's, Coots, Mallards and Moorhen, the Little Grebe was present. I bumped into a fellow local Birder, Glen, who I had probably seen around Upton but never spoken too. It's always good to share a bit of local info, knowledge is power afterall.
Onwards and the trees along the pool were hosting numerous Chaffinch, Goldfinch and 3 very smart Siskins. A Song Thrush was singing and a pair of Blue Tits were flirting with each other, obviously getting a bit ahead of themselves. My first raptor of the year was a very healthy looking Buzzard which drifted over the stubble field. Finally a Redwing showed on the way home, and with a handful of species seen not overlapping the previous days sightings my year list nudged up to 45, with those patch Redpolls almost putting me in a good mood to go back to work. Almost.