Yesteryears News

Personally, i'm not big into nostalgia but thought it would be interesting to see what had been seen locally in previous Decembers. It always seems to be a quiet month for me with not a lot of birding done. Often bad weather, maybe a little burned out by doing to much birding in the autumn plus its always busy doing other things in the lead up to Christmas. In mild years its pretty slow going anyhow, most of the wintering birds have arrived and it usually needs a prolonged cold snap ( if we get one its usually occurs in January or February anyhow ) or viscious Atlantic depressions arriving to stir things up.
The following information has been gathered from the annual Devon Reports, I will try to make it a habit of this blog to include only records accepted by the county or national rarities comittees. There is a good chance I fail to include some good records simply by missing them in the reports.

December 1966.

Already 5 months since the England football team won anything. The best birds were a wintering Whooper Swan on the Avon, and 2 Serins were seen at Slapton Ley. The 200 Coots present on the Kingsbridge Estuary were a normal occurance there until better methods of sewage treatment were introduced. 50 years ago it would have been easy to go out and see Grey Partridges. Like all birders I would love to see the population levels of some species  return to what they used to be, especially Canada Geese which would have been difficult to find.

December 1976

Star bird was a Surf Scoter found by Vic and Sylvia Tucker on the Kingsbridge Estuary on the 27th. Another good record from here were 6 White-fronted Geese going over on the 24th. Elsewhere 2 Whooper Swans at Slapton during the month and a Marsh Harrier at Aveton Gifford on 15th. 6 Gadwall at Slapton Ley would have been a reasonable count then.

December 1986

 High pressure dominated and the only birding highlights were at Slapton with 2 Snow Buntings on the beach, a Bittern on the 14th and a Glaucous Gull at the end of the month.

December 1996

In 1986, when I predicted to anyone who would listen that the December 1996 WeBS counts would produce 41 Little Egrets on the Kingsbridge Estuary, 7 on the Avon Estuary and 4 around Thurlestone they said for sure. What an amazing colonisation, the Collared Dove of my generation. Rarities were 2 Whooper Swans at South Milton on the 8th, 2 Bewick's Swans on the Kingsbridge Estuary on the 29th, a Pink-footed Goose at South Huish from 23rd-25th, 4 Little Auks past Prawle Point on 4th and a Hawfinch at Beesands on the 8th.

December 2006

Fairly tempestuous month which brought some good seabirds to the county. Locally 2 Leach's Petrels were seen flying west off Prawle Point on 4th where there were also unseasonal Great Skuas on 24th and 27th and a Sandwich Tern on the later date. Another Leach's was in Thurlestone Bay on 5th. A Garden Warbler stayed in the reserve at Prawle into the new year.

December 2016

As birds movements at all times , especially winter are reliant on the weather, they can be equally difficult and hit and miss to predict. It has started cold and east winds look set to increase at the end of the weekend. By the end of the month this will produce more wildfowl and maybe even some genuine wild geese somewhere along with more winter thrushes. Waxwings looked a good bet back in the autumn to spread our way but they need to finish of the berries further north for us to have any hope. Prolonged easterlies from now on should bring numbers of gulls into Start Bay with a chance of Little Gull at least.