December Update: Water, Water Everywhere
A brief cold snap produced some crisp, misty mornings in early December, but was soon followed by more wet and windy conditions, one of the warmest Christmases on record and yet another drenching from Storm Gerrit. By the end of the month, Setley Pond had swelled to almost twice its normal size and our trickling streams had turned into raging torrents. Some nimble footwork (and good quality footwear) still enabled us to achieve five full circuits of the patch during the month, with a final flourish of 45 species on the 30 th setting a new December record. No new birds were added to the year list which remains at 97, five short of last year’s total. All lists can be found on eBird via the link: https://ebird.org/hotspot/L12697095 Aside from the flooding, the main headline this month has been the huge numbers of Winter Thrushes - far more than in recent years. During the middle weeks of the month, it seemed that almost everywhere we looked there was a Redwin...