Skirr Cottage Diary

A quick trip down into the Goyt Valley after work gave me three new year migrant ticks and quite a few more regular species. First bird was a lovely female redstart getting some aggression from a robin. The usual Canada geese and cormorants on river end of the reservoir and then the first year sight of a common sandpiper which was a bonus. A walk towards the Riverside Walk produced my first year male pied flycatcher. On the way back along the old coach track to the car park I spotted a pair of pied flycatchers flitting about in a still leafless oak on which was placed a nestbox. Other birds spotted on my short trip were a pair of ravens, kestrels, long-tailed tits, blue and great tits, nuthatch, buzzard, sparrowhawk, goldfinch and great spotted woodpecker. Hoping for tree pipit and cuckoo but saw nor heard either just yet.