Draycote Water :: 02 January 2018

On a mission to add hawfinch to the 2018 year list and so returned to Draycote Water - seemed to be the best chance of getting the tick (although @987jonty reported one still at Thenford Church yesterday). Charlotte decided to join me, on the understanding that we visited the café in the Visitors Centre.

Started with lunch then down into the park to see if we could find the hawfinch. Green woodpecker [#20] standing out on the grass in the playground and mistle thrush [#19] calling from the trees started us off and we soon had our bird - the hawfinch [#25] but in the shadow of the copse on a very gloomy day. We also had a beautiful pair of bullfinches and a large mixed flock of fieldfare and redwing.

Up onto the waterside and we had goldeneye, goosander and a little grebe showing off it's catch. Quite a few dead gulls along the side of the water was upsetting to see. At the turn we saw good numbers of teal, although in the cold I couldn't spot the hybrid green-winged found a few days ago by @wildrainsbrook.

A quick coffee and hot chocolate then back home.

Sightings (31) included: black-headed gull, blackbird, bullfinch, carrion crow, coot, cormorant, dunnock, fieldfare, gadwall, goldeneye, goldfinch, goosander, great crested grebe, green woodpecker, hawfinch, kestrel, lesser black-backed gull, little grebe, long-tailed tit, magpie, mallard, mistle thrush, moorhen, pied wagtail, redwing, robin, song thrush, teal, treecreeper, tufted duck and woodpigeon.