This is an increase over the previous year of around 1,000. We have increased our records every year since the online recording system started in mid 2008, we only managed around 7,000 records that year.

Every record that is inputted is important, be it for a very common species like Robin or Blue Tit to something like Redstart or Wood Lark.

Well done everyone! Lets hope that we can break the 13,000 barrier this year!

Thursday 9th February
Meet at Mildenhall Services, 9.30am.
Lynford Arboretum, 11am.
Hickling Broad, 2.30pm.

Friday 10th February
Titchwell RSPB, 9am
Warham Greens, 3pm

Saturday 11th February
Salthouse Beach, 9am
Cley Marshes NWT, 10.30am
Holkham Beach, 2.30pm

Sunday 12th February
Strumpshaw Fen and Buckenham Marshes area on the way home.

I know the Western Sandpiper is or was (depending on if it stays) at Cley but I’m not sure how many people are interested in seeing it. If there is huge interest then may be we should change it to Friday instead. There is plenty to see a Titchwell, the Coue’s Arctic Redpoll and Meally Redpolls are still there as are many great birds flying past out at sea. Titchwell would also be quieter on a weekday.

Also a Dartford Warbler was spotted in Old Lodge over the weekend. Could they make a comeback this year? Very few numbers survived the two bad Winters we have had in the last few years.

The first bird was a Song Thrush heard in the Car Park, along the top path Goldcrests were heard and seen well, together with Coal & Great Tits, Chaffinch, Dunnock, Robin and 2 Crows.

A female Stonechat then showed well on some Gorse, a male Bullfinch and then a Great Spotted Woodpecker and we still had not travelled more than a hundred yards from the Car Park.

Halfway along the top path a male Crossbill was seen, and scanning produced at least 3 males and several females all feeding on cones and allowing some great views. More Bullfinches were then seen with 3 seen together.  Blue Tit  and Blackbird were noted and Green Woodpecker heard.

A few yards further and two Woodlarks were seen by a raised mound, further scanning of the area produced a small party of 4 Woodlarks feeding on the ground.

5 fly over Wood Pigeons added this species to the list.

We walked down the hill past the ponds and at this point we met Richard who had apparently arrived late and had missed us, so our party then became 7.

We continued walking the path down towards the stream which brought the cronk calls of a Raven and scanning toward the army land gave views on the ground and in flight of the Raven with more calling. The hoped for Great Grey Shrike in this area was searched for but was not found. A Jay was heard and in a Silver Birch was at least 4 Long Tailed Tits.

Beyond the stream a flyover Common Gull was noted.

On top of some larches were a flock of around 20 Starlings, with a Redwing and 5 Fieldfare.

We then walked around the path which overlooks the Pippingford estate which unfortunately produced very little of note, but as we climbed the back path by the Old Lodge estate, a flock of ca. 18 Lesser Redpolls were seen and showed well.

The walk back towards the old log pile area added  2 flyover Stock Dove and Nuthatch.

A Marsh Tit was heard, further Goldcrest and tits were noted on the last walk back to the Car Park and we arrived back around 11:45AM.

All agreed it was a very pleasant worthwhile walk, the target species of Crossbill with those great views were the highlight for most, however the Woodlarks and Raven were also very rewarding.

Our 2 hours or so walk produced a nice 28 species which for the Ashdown Forest was a good list.

Report by Bob Johnson

As most of you are aware we have now moved our website to a new host. This not only means we all save money but it gives us the opportunity to utilise Open Source solutions like WordPress, PHP and MySQL. This means that posts on this website will be able to include images and other content which was not previously achievable without a lot of hard work.

We now have some new e-mail addresses too.

Our new recording system is still in heavy development at the moment but we are aiming begin rolling out the new system around the first weekend of February. The first roll-out will purely be for recording and wider testing. I will post more information nearer the time.

Thanks again for all your support!