New Years Listing in Bedfordshire

My January 1st list was pretty pathetic as I didn't get up till gone midday and when I did I had to drive myself and 4 others back from central london after a short recovery period! So my day list didn't make it into double figures, Highlights being feral pigeon and back-headed gull, plus some lovely views of woodpigeons :-\. When I finally got back I slept till it was too dark for birding. To sum it up Jan 1st was a write off.

So I decided to do a new years day plus 1 list around Bedfordshire.

Didn't try too hard, birding from 9am till 2pm but had a great time and racked up 59 species! with several new ones in Beds for me, and of course many year ticks!

Started at Cifton looking at the finch flock, Highlights being:

8+ Tree Sparrows (dreadful photo);

3+ House Sparrow;

4+ Brambling;

Yammers;

Loads of Reed Buntings;

Linnit;

Fieldfare;

A roosting male sparrowhawk was nice here aswell although he was hiding;

Was nice to meet a fellow Beds birder (John Temple), and like him I moved on to Swiss Gardens next to try and locate the female firecrest with no luck on my side, lots of goldcrest though and picked up some new year ticks here.

Highlights here being 6 manderins, another Beds tick for me!! A fly over grey heron put in an appearance, photo in black and white (trying to be artistic with a different view to the normal):

From here I went to Blumham lakes hoping to see the gargany. After finally finding what I think was the lake I could not locate the garg'. Still there were lots of year ticks here and it was a very busy, bird filled lake..

From here I tried to find Moggerhanger village hall to see corn buntings and skylark, but foolishly I forget to look were it was on the internet before leaving home, so couldn't find it :-S.

Decided to go to The Lodge next for a flapjack and a wander in the woods. Nothing new for the day list but got some better photos here:

Was a nice day, best bird being the tree sparrows!

Year List is now a staggering (well maybe not) 60! 145 to go if I'm to beat last year!!

Happy New Year!