The final Monthly Summary for 2020 - December

We've reached the end of a difficult year and I finish with a summary of the birds I spotted during December. As has become the norm I visited three Glasgow locations and this time saw 58 species. 

 A snapshot of the highlights follows: 

 

Bingham's Pond 

I visited the pond 4 times during the month and saw 22 different species with the best sighting a flyover Buzzard. It was also memorable for being really busy, with local people feeding the birds, and for some nice sunsets.

Bingham's Pond - 7 December 2020

Dawsholm Park LNR 

Here, I recorded 25 species from two visits with Sparrowhawk, Stock Dove, Nuthatch, Ring-necked Parakeet and Dipper being the most memorable.

Ring-necked Parakeet - 20 December 2020

Dipper at the pond - 20 December 2020

Hogganfield Park LNR 

Finally, on to my favourite birding location in Glasgow - Hogganfield Park LNR. Five visits and 47 species seen. The star birds were a redhead Smew, which had stayed over from November; a 1st winter Iceland Gull and a Scaup.

Smew - 17 December 2020

1st winter Iceland Gull, behind 2 Wigeon - 30 December 2020

Scaup - 30 December 2020

I use a bird recording system called BirdTrack to record all my sightings. This feeds into national data bases and also provides the individual with an easy to use data search system.

As a result I can quickly find out that during 2020 I saw:

44 species at Bingham's Pond;

51 species at Dawsholm Park LNR; 

89 species at Hogganfield Park LNR; and

100 species within the City of Glasgow.

It is unlikely that I would have paid so many visits to these three locations, and seen so many different birds in the City, if it hadn't been for the pandemic; so some good has come out of this crisis!

Remember to click on the photos to create a slideshow and enhanced viewing.

Finally, thank you all for reading my Blog and hopefully 2021 will be a better year for everyone.