2023 promised a similar outlook of keeping it largely local, within 12 miles of home - it can be hard work but I enjoy it and it fits around family life!
It was a relatively slow start to the year, leading up towards spring.
The best birding to be had was up in the flooded mid-Cherwell Valley near to Aynho. The highlight was finding my first Pink-Footed Goose for the area, with numbers of Greylags and Canadas - incidentally found while looking for the Brent Goose I'd seen before the new year!
The mid-Cherwell was alive with over 2,000 Lapwings, a few Golden Plover and plenty of Wigeon, Gadwall, Teal & Pintail gracing the floods. Lapwings generally were in excellent numbers locally in general, close to Brackley and the Upper Cherwell too. Seemingly a big push in from the continent during recent cold snaps.
Elsewhere it was Geese that dominated the script too, as I managed to catch-up with the long-staying 1st-winter Brent Goose at Foxcote Reservoir, plus a relatively brief Egyptian Goose in the Upper Cherwell Valley.
A family trip to Stowe Gardens is always enjoyable, with relatively close quarter views of a range of wildfowl. A visit on 12/02 was no exception, including a pair of Goosander and the first signs of spring with plenty of Snowdrops out.
A few other pics from Jan-March:
Shelduck & Corvid roost at Bicester Wetland;
A hungry Mistle Thrush & Little Egret from Brackley.
A wintery scene at Hinton Airfield a handsome Carrion Crow from Grimsbury Res
