Slippery Slope

 As I've said before, the intention this year is to see a little more of the local area, rather than a blinkered pursuit of a patch list at Barton. I'll still be focussing on there, but I've realised it's getting me out of practice with a lot of stuff, and I don't want to forget wader jizz, duck calls and the like.

This week I've had a couple of nice walks in the New Forest around the home village, seeing nice stuff such as Brambling, Firecrest and Crossbill and generally just enjoying some nice pleasant birding.

And a visit to Barton Common, a bit of patch I don't check out often enough turned up a nice, if furtive, Dartford Warbler for the patch year list.

A lot of this has been prompted by the rather annoying matter of being without a scope, my not-so-trusty Swarovski having fogged up for the third time in a year, and the fourth time in the 5½ years I've had it. Everyone I've spoken to agrees with me that really the most sensible and economical thing for Swarovski to do would be to cut their losses and just replace what is clearly a fundamentally flawed bit of kit. Everyone except Swarovski that is, and so it's on its way to Austria again, and I'm left binocular birding again. I'm loathe to be too critical of Swaro, their customer service is seemingly way ahead of their competitors, but . . .

Anyway, scope or no scope, it has been my intention to visit the old patch (Pennington, etc) a bit more often and after an early week trip to Normandy Marsh, where the wintering Little Stint was among the rewards, I heard yesterday evening that Efford Lake, Pennington held a Black-necked Grebe. Which presented a dilemma. Whilst, as said, a visit was on the cards, I'm not sure Saturday would've been the natural choice, Monday would make more sense. And going today would basically just be dirty twitching. HOWEVER . . . Black-necked Grebe is a species that has always eluded me there (records are infrequent and unpredictable) and so first thing this morning

In the event it was a nice walk, I got there as early as daylight would allow and could therefore leave before the worst of the crowds, and the still conditions meant the sea was like a mirror and I could see with bins that it held none of the stuff I hoped it would and was worried I might not be able to clearly identify. But plenty was seen, as it always is there, including ten new for the year list (actually not all seen because, like many, I'm happy to go with a heard-only).

Then late afternoon, after a bit of work, popped down to have a squiz at more flat calm sea off Barton. 24+ Purple Sandpipers were on the rocks and there was quite a bit on the sea, mostly gulls but also a raft of 23 Great Crested Grebes (a huge number for there), which contained a single Common Scoter, but it was hard work without a scope so the next three weeks (or however long) is going to be rather testing.

The scoter was the day's 11th year tick, taking the year list to 118. Strictly speaking that's a #LocalBigYear list of 118, but I'm not sure whether going to more places than usual is really in the spirit of this excellent initiative! At least they are still very local, and I guess if I'm travelling a similar distance (or less) as I would to Barton (although I often tie that in with work, so no extra miles are done). And therein lies the slippery slope. Having sort of changed my plans for that grebe, even in a very minor way, have I now started taking this Big Year just a little TOO seriously? I really don't want to get in the habit of chasing after stuff at places I wouldn't otherwise have visited. Maybe I should've let the first one go? I suspect that once spring starts Barton will prove enough of a lure, that I'll worry what I'm missing if I go elsewhere.

We shall see.