The Start of another Birding Year and still in Lockdown

The year started with us all still suffering from the Covid pandemic alongside a necessary and changing 'lockdown'.

This restricted my January bird watching and once again I just visited three locations in Glasgow with a total of 63 species seen. I made 5 visits to Bingham's Pond (30 species); 3 visits to Dawsholm Park LNR (31 species) and 3 visits to Hogganfield Park LNR (45 species). 

The big thrill was finding a Ring-necked Duck on Bingham's Pond, a first for the Pond and the City of Glasgow. This is a rare duck in the UK and is usually found in North America. It probably arrived in Scotland in autumn following the storms and was seen in and around the lochs and reservoirs of Milngavie before arriving in Glasgow during a cold snap when many of the surrounding lochs and reservoirs froze over. Thankfully, Bingham's Pond and Victoria Park Pond, where it was also seen, rarely freeze over completely. This is probably thanks to the birds being regularly fed by locals and thereby creating a concentration of birds in a small area which helps keep some open water. 

Other highlights in the City included Smew and Iceland Gull as well as finding a few 'ringed' Black-headed Gulls and, thereafter, finding out where they had come from.

A few images follow, all copyright Jim Coyle:

Bingham's Pond

Ring-necked Duck 

Black-headed Gull - ringed in the Moorfoot Hills, south of Edinburgh

Common Gull

Sunset

Dawsholm Park LNR

Highland Cow

Ring-necked Parakeet

Song Thrush

Jay (in poor light!)

Sunset

Hogganfield Park LNR

Snipe

Stonechat

Whooper Swan

Black-headed Gull - ringed in Poland

Smew

Iceland Gull (centre)

Sunset

No doubt February will be much of the same, in the meantime stay safe.