upton warren

31/12/08
i should have gone on the first day of the year to start my list off but i couldent wait. the highligh of the day was surly a possible woodcock that me and my dad saw in the field behind the east hide of the moors with 9 curlew i only saw it fly in but my dad saw it in the grass and said snipe so i carried on but only realised my massive blunder while driving home.next comes a shelduck(its my first inland)that was a female that stood half hidden behind the island. i was even more supprised to see the flashes frozen solid and no birds apart from a bullfinch(feeder hide)and an amusing duck fight ,a grey wag on hen brook ,another shelduck(juv)that flew over ,a snipe that crash landed on ice and a flyover buzzard and kestrel.i have got a camera finaly it isnt very good(its a film camera not digital)but ittle do.i got some photos of the ducks at the moors notably wigeon and took some wide shots of all the ducks that were crammed in front of the hide as 90% of the lake was frozen.the bittern is still there reachin a peak of 3.while in the hide some birders came in and said the bittern was showing on the north moors(where we had been 20 mins earlier) on the tops of the reeds so we gathered our stuff and walked to the causeway from where it had been seen.it had dissapeared but i couldent stand around much longer my hands were dropping off in sub zero temperatures.
the list for today is(only moors pool):
little grebe-3 g c grebe-20 cormorants-5 shelduck-1(dont forget the flashes flyover) mallard gadwall-3 widgeon-4 teal-50-100(hard to count these when there in such a small space) pochard-6 tufted duck-70c ruddy duck-1 water rail-1 moorhen-15 coot-150-200 lapwing-4 curlew-9 woodcock-1 snipe-2 jack snipe-1 b h gull-50c l b b gull-1 woodpigeon kingfisher-1 g s woodpecker-2 pied wag-3 wren-2 dunnock-1 robin song thrush-2 redwing-10 mistle thrush-1 fieldfare-2 blackbird cettis warbler-4 great tit blue tit l t tit-20 magpie jay-1 jackdaw-2 carrian crow goldfinch greenfinch-3 siskin-2 chaffinch-5 lesser redpoll-6
i was sifting through the redpoll flock for any mealys i dint see any but one was found in exacly the same place the next day