Bury St Edmunds

For me at least, the Garden Bird Race didn't deliver the birds and hype of the Spring effort. There was a glimmer of hope early doors with the second record of Egyptian Goose for garden, a flyby pair at 07:30 turned out to be the only highlight of the periods of watching I did. Low cloud persisted all day, never lifting sufficiently to deliver the local raptors or longer views of flyover birds. The atmospheric conditions also seemed to amplify traffic noise, hampering my heavy metal addled ears. Several flyover finch species went unidentified for example. I ended with a total of 25 species - having had 44 back in the Spring and with an abundance of 'daily birds' missing. Today I saw Coal and Long-tailed Tit before I'd even finished my first cuppa. Neither bothered to show when it counted yesterday! 

Luckily local farmland scratched my birding itch today, despite the persistent fog. I don't feel like I've seen the sun for days - I'll have rickets by Wednesday at this rate! A finch flock I'd driven past in the week contained a load white-rumps and it was good to return and get views of Brambling:

Brambling

Brambling

There was also a couple of Golden Plover out in the gloom:

Golden Plover

Best of all was a covey of 4 Grey Partridge. Incredibly a year tick! BirdTrack tells me Grey Partridge was my 177th species for the year - a paltry total! What an odd year 2020 has been. 

Grey Partridge

Grey Partridge

Grey Partridge

Grey Partridge

I do love Grey Partridge, assuming these are wild as opposed to released birds, it's always encouraging to seem them locally. 

A dusk walk with the lady delivered a flyby Woodock and Tawny Owl chaser. A further boost after the farmland trio. The Woodcock and owl just 100m away from the house! A quality of bird that was not present during yesterday's Garden Bird Race!