New Year Birding - 2007

New Forest and Blashford Lakes


sturt pond, milford-on-sea

It's  2007 and I've  decided to keep a blog this year to record my birding trips. I live in Hampshire UK and the Hampshire Coast, the New Forest and Blashford Lakes are my main birding areas.

It all began  last May.   A very good friend of mine died suddenly, and I was in shock and depressed. After her funeral my husband and I  went down to Milford on Sea.    I always feel better by the sea.    We  walked along the beach and then  sat down beside  the pond.    I was watching the swans when my attention was drawn to a gull-like bird, plunge-diving into the pond. I had never seen anything like it before and I was totally captivated. I had no idea what the bird was, so when I got home I looked through an old bird book and found  it was a Common Tern.   A  couple of days later we went back to the pond  and saw it again.   And that was it....... the start of my birding days.

January 1st 2007

I'm not what you'd call a morning person, but after a very late night I didn't have any problem getting up before 6am, so not a bad start to my New Year.

I headed down to the kitchen and put the kettle on as I was gasping for a cuppa. I remember seeing some birds flying past  the kitchen window.   But I was still a wee bit tired after the late night, so I  didn't pay much attention to them.

An hour or so later my husband and I were heading to the New Forest to look for the Great Grey Shrike that had been seen near Burley.

We searched the area quite extensively but no sign of the shrike. I had started taking a note of other birds seen since we left the house.

1. magpie
2. robin
3. starling
4. blackbird


I'm sure you can see by the list above I am not that good at identifying birds!

We eventually  gave up on the shrike and headed to one of my favourite places - Blashford Lakes near Ringwood. Apart from the lakes there is a beautiful little wood full of finches, tits, nuthatch, woodpeckers and treecreeper.

5. great tit
6. blue tit
7. nuthatch
8. chaffinch
9. tufted duck
10. coot
11. mallard
12. great crested grebe
13. cormorant

Then it was down the road to Ibsley Bridge to look for some Bewicks Swans.  I heard there were  a couple of them in the area,  and as I had never seen them before I was hoping to get a result.....and I did. I also noticed a buzzard  some stonechats, canada geese, mute swans pied wagtail, and a black headed gull.

14. bewicks swan
15. buzzard
16. stonechat
17. canada goose
18. mute swans
19. pied wagtail
20. black headed gull
21. carrion crow
22. wood pigeon
23. house sparrow