BirdTrack/Atlas day

I've neglected Egton Banks over the last year but it's a good little spot. There is the potential for Lesser Spotted 'Pecker I reckon. Unfortunately my old BirdTrack site falls in two tetrads so today I split the site in two and kept two sets of notes. I haven't done this for every site but neither of these tetrads have been claimed by anyone, however, I've just taken on one more (see later) so didn't fancy another two full Atlas sites. The lower part of the site, by the river, was quite good today with Marsh Tit, Nuthatch and a decent flock of Lapwings (44) and Common Gulls (c100) and Siskin. The river seemed a bit violent for Dipper and I couldn't find one. The upper tetrad was much quieter, and seemed colder with only Grey Wagtail and Great Spotted Woodpecker of note. There were Roe Deer in both squares, three by the river and one up the hill.

At lunchtime I got myself dropped off (car problems) at Scaling Dam where there was little of note, Mallard, 246; Teal, 199; Wigeon, 34; Tufted, c20; Goldeneye, 8; a Little Grebe and 3 Cormorant. On checking the website I discovered that no one has adopted Scaling Dam as an Atlas site, and my whole BirdTrack site pretty much is within a single tetrad so I've added it to the list. 33 species for this late winter visit. Early in the New Year there had apparently been a Water Pipit here, seen several times by the hide. This bird didn't get on to BirdGuides otherwise I might have nipped over there during my festive break.