January 1st Patch Birding

1st of January, a day that wherever possible goes in the diary as a patch birding day!

Steve Waite had a Great White Egret land on BHM early morning, which fortunately was still about later & I managed to catch up with in the afternoon. It was perched, rather unusually, on a house... I'm not sure if this is the bird I had on December 26th or not, as someone else said they'd seen it on a rooftop late December. I haven't seen any pics good enough to be able to compare; mine from today were absolutely terrible as I was at Seaton Marshes, and the bird was on a house west of Black Hole Marsh! Similar distance to the Marsh Harrier which was a nice surprise today.

I'd been hoping to get the Dartford Warbler which has been about, but elusive, for a few weeks now; a bird I've not managed to see on patch yet, and it'll stay that way for the time being.

So, how bad a standard of pics do we want to see on this blog? A photo-less post just looks a bit lame in my opinion, but the photos from today are lame too. I'd say my priority balance has swung to more like 95% birder 5% photographer these days. I like photos for records, I like photos to help with ID, and occasionally I like to try and get nice photos of a nice bird.

So, lame photos are a go-go. To make this extra lame, the pics probably aren't worth getting off the camera, so I'll post a BOC (back of camera) pic taken on my phone instead...