Like November it was another quiet month for birds with only 60 species seen.
The continuing mild winter weather means that many birds have just not arrived in our area i.e. Southern Grey Shrike and Blue Rock Thrush are examples.
A full list of the birds seen with comments on their status follows.
Flocks of up to 840 Balearic Shearwaters were seen offshore fishing throughout the month. The best numbers since 2007.
Only single Northern Gannets were seen well below the ten year average of
three birds.
Up to three Shags were above the ten year average.
Great Cormorant numbers above average with a maximum of 81 birds seen.

One Grey Heron seen was normal December numbers.
Flocks of up to 11 Cattle Egrets were also normal for December.
Just single Little Egrets noted were below average numbers for December.

A juvenile Common Teal at the sewage pond from the 9th to the 12th was the first seen this year and only the second December record.

Like wise a male Hen Harrier seen on the 7th December was only the second December record in ten years.
Up to two Common Buzzard and four Common Kestrel were both normal December numbers.
With the sewage pond almost dry only four Common Moorhens were seen, well down on the 37 maximum seen in 2008.
Three or four Golden Plovers appear to be wintering in the rural farmland, it’s not every year that they do so,
All the gull species numbers were well down. 24 Mediterranean Gulls, 28 Black-headed Gulls, 47 Audouin´s Gulls, 4 Yellow-legged Gulls and 45 Lesser Black-back Gulls.
Up to 54 Sandwich Terns were seen during the month were good numbers.
Both Wood Pigeon (max. 90 birds) and Collared Doves (max.53 birds) numbers continue to rise. Wood Pigeons more so than Collared Doves.
The Little Owl population continues to be low, with only single birds see.
A very late Pallid Swift was seen flying south on the 20th – my first December record.
Wintering Crag Martin numbers were at a ten year low, with only nine birds seen. I put this down to the mild weather rather than a fall in numbers.
Hoopoe numbers on the other hand were on a ten year maximum, with up to 12 birds seen.
Resident Crested Larks were in normal December numbers at 11 birds, while the wintering Skylark numbers were well up at 102 birds maximum.
Another species at a ten year low was Meadow Pipit with only six birds seen.
Again I put this down to the mild weather.
Single Grey Wagtails and up to 40 White Wagtails were normal December numbers.
Robin numbers were slightly down at 13 birds max.
While Black Redstart numbers were upon the average at 16 max.
For the first year since 2004, no Blue Rock Thrushes were wintering, again I think weather related.
A max. of 11 Common Stonechats were normal December numbers.

Single Blackbirds seen were normal numbers while 16 Song Thrush max. was just above average numbers.
Up to three Cetti´s Warblers were holding winter territories, normal for December.
Only four Zitting Cisticola´s max. continues the downward trend in this resident species. One reason may be that local farmers who have horse’s are cutting the grasslands were the Zitting Cisticola´s nest.
The usual one or two Dartford Warblers are wintering in the coastal scrubland.
Their rivals in the same habitat – Sardinian Warblers – continue to increase with 20 birds max.
Blackcap(17 birds max.) numbers are above average for December, while Common Chiffchaff numbers are well down at 9 Max.

Four Long-tailed Tits first seen in November, were seen again on the 9th – a first December record.
15 Common Magpies max. were normal December numbers.

Their is a plan by the local Castellón gardening association to capture Common Magpies and train them to hunt the Red Palm Weevil, as these insects are destroying loads of Palm trees in the area!
The resident and wintering finches were in good numbers.
Chaffinch 111 birds max., Greenfinch 27 birds max., and Linnet 62 birds max.
were all average numbers for December. Goldfinch 53 birds max. were well down in numbers. Serin 114 max. were well above average.

Two Cirl Buntings, single Rock Bunting and 10 Reed Buntings were usual
December numbers. 10 Corn Buntings were well above average for December.
Alcossebre Weather in December 2010.
December was mainly a mild sunny month with above average temperatures, but with quiet a lot of windy days.

The first week started off unsettled with sunny/cloudy spells. We had 0.4 inches of rain on the afternoon of the third. The next four days were fine and sunny. Moderate northerly winds kept temperatures down on three days.
The second week was mixed with only one day fine and sunny. The rest were either overcast and dull (two days) or sunny with cloudy spells (four days).
Winds were light or gentle.
The third week was either fine and sunny or sunny with cloudy spells.
There was moderate to strong north westerly winds on five days, making it feel colder.
The forth week, including Christmas day was fine and sunny. The only exception was on the 28th with light overnight rain, which soon cleared.
The last three days had sunny/cloudy spells but with moderate northerly winds keeping temperatures down.

The average day temperature was 17C (62F)
The highest day temperature was 21C (70F) on the 5th and 21st.
The coldest days were on the 17th,18th,25th & 26th at 15C (59F)
The average night temperature was 9C (48F)
The warmest night was on the 21st at 16C (60F)
The coldest nights were on the 25th and 26th at 5C (41F)
Total rainfall for the month was 0.5 inches (13mm) over two days.

Compared to 2010 it was 3C warmer by day and 2C warmer by night.
It was just slightly wetter with 0.5 compared to 0.2 in 2010.

Mockbeggar Lake looking south.

A drake Gadwall in front of the Tern Hide.

After the training session was over, I drove over to the Tern Hide overlooking Ibsley Water and being the only one in the Hide, I was pleased to see a good number of birds on or over the Lake. Though nothing really unusual had been reported of late, bar the odd Caspian Gull and Yellow-legged Gull, it was lacking anything out of the ordinary. A flock of five Goosanders, including a single drake, swam close to one of the spits but soon disappeared. Near the hide, Gadwall, Tufted Duck and Pochard swam on the water amongst the Coots. Grey Lag Geese numbered around 100 birds which were on the west side of the Lake with skeins of the birds flying high overhead heading down the Avon Valley.

A drake Pochard in front of the Tern Hide.Some of the many Lesser Black-backed Gulls flying over Isbley Water.
Other wildfowl present included Shoveler, Mallard and Wigeon and just the one Pintail, a drake, was seen. What was impressive was the number of Lesser Black-backed Gulls present on the water (at least 600+) but most were too far away to check for the Caspian or Yellow-legged Gulls. A Common Buzzardflew low over the shoreline on the east side. Apparently, the Black-necked Grebe was showing earlier today along with 25 Goosanders, however, the observer said that a male and female BN Grebe was present?

Happy Trails To You…..
Until…We Meet again….
Happy Trails To You…Until….
OK!! Enough of that. Lyn and I are are attempting to record 2000 species of birds this year. We are at 77 for the year only 1923 to go not bad this means we will have to average 192.3 new birds per month….maybe!
So we are off for a little shake down trip.
First we head to the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Over wintering ducks. Then to Ocean City, Maryland for an overnighter (Free use of Condo). We hope to rack up all three species of Scoter, 2 of Loons (Divers), Long-tail Ducks, Eiders, and maybe even a Screech-owl at Blackwater.
Leaving OC we head south and cross over the Chesapeake Bay in VA…stop at tunnel and check out what is there…Purple Sandpiper..any Scoters we might have missed….who knows?
Then it is off to Florida…Pensacola first. visit Ann and Dan Forster….then Everglades and Keyes…just to see what is there…up to Miami and off to Venezuela for 15 days…we have arranged for a guide and transport and we are off to Henri Pittier National Park and so on and so on..
We will return sometime around April 2nd or 3rd…who knows?
We will post then.
Just to let you know what is on the burner so to speak.
February- Minnesota
February & March- Florida and Venezuela
April- 2 weeks in Colorado and Wyoming…back to MD..early migration
May- Iceland and Norway
June- Brazil (Looking for 2 people to round out this one)
July- Brazil
August- Southern Ecuador & Northern Peru for Tumbesian Specialists
September- Bolivia (Looking for one person to round out a 3 person trip. This is a great trip)
October- Back to Peru for Southern Birds and a little sight seeing
November- Argentina
December- Argentina and Chile
So good birding everyone.
See you soon.

I want to talk about what none of us….and I mean….NONE of us ever want to admit. That, yes, sometimes we make the teeniest of tiny mistakes when it comes to our coveted bird ID.
Now I am not talking about the blown call that you might make when you are out by yourself. No. I mean the “Super String.” Where you “string” the bird so bad that for days on end you just want to sit in your darkened basement and smack your head repeatedly with your Sibley’s* and swear that you will take up mushroom watching as a new hobby.
Well. We do not want to lose any birding enthusiasts. So how do you deal with the potentially devastating fallout from your “super string”?
There are several schools of thought on this subject. Murphy’s Law will dictate that your Super Oratorical Ornithic Yammer of Biblical Proportions will undoubtedly occur right in the middle of a gaggle of birders. So you say, “Skip. You have had lots of experience with just this problem. What would you recommend that I do?”
Well here are a few pointers that I have found useful:
1. Blame it on the weather. “My eyes were watering from the sub arctic 60
degree winds”.
2. Blame the call on your glasses, binocular, scope, field guide or hat. Break
out a cleaning cloth and start to furiously clean your binos explaining, “Oh
man!! I forgot to clean my glasses since I came back from birding the
Amazonian Paramo in Berundi, Australia.” Hopefully everyone will be
impressed with your world travels and amazing grasp of geography. Just to
let you know I never clean my glasses, binoculars, scope or hat. Just in
case I need an excuse.
3. Look at the person next to you and say, “Thats the dumbest call I have ever
heard.” Then duck and weave and try to blend in with the other birders in the
confusion.
4. Blame your bad call on suspect information from some famous personality.
This works well if you have had them in a class before. I personally blame
all kind of bad calls on Pete Dunne and Clay Sutton. But, I never blame
anything on Pat Sutton or Louise Zemaitis.I do not want to get my butt
kicked. Write a list of names on an index card which you can keep in your
pocket and when the need arises pull out your card and blame away.
5. Quickly break into a foreign accent and pretend your new in town. If you
have forgotten that you are with your local birding group go directly to #7.
6. Call out another bird real loud. Preferably a rare and endangered species or
even an extinct species as this usually creates quite a stir and your blown
call will quickly be forgotten.
7. If nothing is working do what I do and fall to the ground and start rolling
around, foaming at the mouth (this is always effective), speak in tongue
(learn a few Greek, Latin and Arabic words and feel free to throw these in as
needed), and do the “frying bacon.” This usually freaks people out so bad
that they will completely forget your stupid call.
8. Cry.
9. Or else as a last resort you can admit that you made a mistake. Now I know
what you are thinking. “Nelson are you out of your ever luvin mind?” Now I
only recommend that you use this as a last resort. This is an extremely
radical ploy on your part to throw everyone off. Accepting responsibility for
a bad call or a boneheaded misguided stupid stupid decision is just plain
Un-American. So please be very careful when using this potentially
dangerous and subversive tactic.
Notes: Caution should be exercised about over using #7. Your local birding club will start giving you the wrong meeting times and locations for field trips. I’ve noticed that my copy of our schedule appears to have been tampered with.
* Please note that if you are European (as George Bush has discovered there are actual people who live in Europe) please use the hardback version of “The Complete Guide to the Birds of Europe” to get the full effect. I have used the paperback version in the past and feel that it is not up to the task at hand.

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Let’s Talk Minnesotan!!
The only thing that exceeds the cold…cold…weather of Northern Minnesota is the warmth of the people. These people are awesome. Wherever we went we were inundated with all of the local citizens special owl encounters. Everyone was eager to share with us their favorite “owl road.” We even got tips from Ken Boyd at the gas station on Route 210 in McGregor and permission to go “tramp ” his field in search of owls. Ray Rheinhold, owner of Town and Country Motel in McGregor not only gave us his tips, but dug up a copy of “Birding Aitkin County” by Warren Nelson (no relation…well maybe no relation…could be…hell who knows the Nelsons cover half the state). We even had a construction worker, complete with the required Carhart coveralls, pull up and idle his large diesel truck with a Bobcat skidloader in tow while we were parked along the raod scoping a good bird.
“What you folks looking at?” he asked.
Now where I come from once I tell people that we are looking at birds we usually get laughed at or cursed. When I tell this guy we are observing a Northern Shrike perched in the tree, he says “Good Bird! There are some great owl roads just go down and make a left hand turn at the cross roads then make the next right turn and look for the farm on your right. Have fun.” And off he rode.
My wife and I just looked at each other. How could this be…what parallel universe did we land in, where ordinary just plain old folks (my kind of people) take their time to not only talk to birders, but to give actual fantastic birding tips.
I Love Minnesota!!!!!
Now the McGregor area is fantastic. All of the backroads have very little traffic so they are very safe for our type of birding, driving slow, sudden stops and my bad driving. All of the backroads and nooks and crannies of Aikin County are worth birding so do not be scared of the ice and snow coverage. We never got stuck once.
The area that was kind to us was Rice Lake National Wildlife Refuge. The people working there were helpful, gracious and kind. While there we had excellent looks at Great Gray, Northern Hawk and……
Now I belong to the Yogi Berra School of Birding which goes by the mantra ” I’d Rather be Lucky than Good.”
We had just ticked Great Gray Owl and Northern Hawk Owl (“little round Christmas decorations with tails at the tops of trees” a rather good description supplied to us by Rich Peet a Minneapolis birder……I thinks he spends a lot of time in the bogs) and was feeling pretty full of myself. So…I decided to get a little greedy and go for Black-backed Woodpecker. We drove over the bridge on the road leading out of the Refuge and found a good spot which I though looked rather good for woodpeckers and turned off the car. Black-backed Woodpecker is a good bird for us and was one of our target birds.
I reached over to lower the window on the rental SUV and when I turned my head I was face to face…..rather face to facial disc with a rather small, but sleepy looking Boreal Owl. Just nine feet from from the car at eye level…you just can’t get any luckier than that!!!
We believe that this is the first report of Boreal Owl for Rice Lake….if anyone knows any different please comment us at the end of this blog. Photos to follow.

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Sooooo….let me tell you about my day!!!
It started in Duluth, Minnesota on Friday at 7:30 am. We showered, ate and headed south to St. Paul Minneapolis birding along the way and picking up Snow Buntings at Sandstone National Wildlife Refuge along with four Rough-legged Hawks.
A nice ending for a short trip to the frozen north which included Great Gray Owls, Northern Hawk Owls and a first for us and the Rice Lake Wildlife Management Area a cute little Boreal Owl.
Not a bad trip and we left Minnesota a few ticks to the good and a little wiser about the ways of the north.
It all started to go down hill upon our arrivial at Chicago Midway Airport. We had a Mid-Winter count scheduled to start the next morning at 7:00 am and guess what our flight was delayed. We arrived back at our home base at 4:30 am dead beat and worn out. Two hours, or was it one, of sleep and we were back at it again.
Mid-Winter Counts in Frederick County, Maryland are not exactly what one calls exciting. Unless your idea of fun is counting thousands of Starlings, thousands of Crows and House Sparrows with a few good winter birds thrown in. But there we were ready to tuff it out.
After eight hours of driving and counting crow after crow after crow after….hey what is that one.
I told Lyn, my life birding buddy, to check out the Killdeer in the snow melt to the right hand side of our truck. I watch for cars while she slowly announces that it is not a Killdeer, but a Northern Lapwing…”It’s to big for a Longspur” says I.
“Your right” says she. “It is to big for a Longspur. It’s a Lapwing.”
I start to drive off. Then I stop. “It’s a Kestrel taking a bath in the snowmelt” says I.
“No” says she, “It’s a Lapwing. Look at the crest”
I finally raise my binos up to my bleary sleep deprived eyes to gaze at one of the most beautiful birds to visit our shores from afar. We have seen this bird before where it is very common in winter in Ireland. We have also seen the bird in breeding plumage and in breeding habitat on Raflin Island in Northern Ireland in spring, but never in the States.
In fact until Lyn and I set our eyes on this bird it has never been recorded in the State of Maryland and only sparringly reported across the nation.
So now you see our problem. No camera (we still had not unpacked from Minnesota) no proof. The bird does not exist in the eyes of everyone else including that dreaded body, The Records Committee.
So now it is Saturday night. I report the bird and am met with well let’s just say that they chalked the bird up to Sleep Deprivation. Now I can’t sleep again as the list chaser will surely be out in force on Sunday am and my stomach is a complete knot.
Saturady night comes and goes…no sleep. Sunday 2:30 am still no sleep. What if the bird is not there the next morn. Will we be laughed out of the state.
3:00 am …no sleep 4:30 am….no sleep
7:30 am…make coffee…now I have been awake for 48 hours straight.
Go birding with Lyn…White-throats…Bluebirds….Sharp-shin Hawk shows up and makes me forget at least for a moment the giant knot that has developed in my stomach.
Check my e-mails. I see that the sighting has been posted and sent out. Now the bird just needs to be there.
9:30 am Can’t wait any longer. I call Gary Smyle…if anyone will dog this bird it’s Gary. Sure enough I get him on his cell.
“No bird. Just a Killdeer”
Oh no any bird except a Killdeer. How many birders are there now questioning the sighting. “It was only a Killdeer that the sleep deprived idoit strung along for a Lapwing.”
I do laundry..well I put the clothes in the machine…did I put in detergent…I can’t remember…I put more in.
Noon comes and goes 53 hours without sleep.
4:30 comes nothing from no one. Can’t stand it anymore. Lyn wants to go look for Owls. Drive to Washington County. Even the owls won’t talk to me. I get skunked.
Drive back.
57 hours without sleep and I am still as sharp as well a block of hardened concrete.
Get back.
Call from Gary………He has pictures.
It’s now 10:30 pm. I have been up for 63 hours straight.
The only thing that I can say is ” I hope I don’t have to go throught this again or get another bird like this one…welll until I get at least 8 hours sleep.
Good Birding and thanks to all the people who showed up today to see the Confirmed First State Sighting of a rather lost Northern Lapwing.
I am going to get some sleep now.

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