Blue Tit 
Blackcap 
Tree Sparrows 
Tree Sparrow 
Treecreeper 
Merlin 
Long-tailed Tit 
Lesser Redpoll 
Lesser Redpoll 
Grey Partridge 
Fieldfare 
Fieldfare 
Dipper 
Brambling
The first day of the new year brought a Treecreeper into the garden. This started the year for quite a few winter visitors. Long-tailed Tits started to appear in small numbers but gradually as the month went on their numbers increased to nine. At the end of last year, there had been a male Blackcap in the garden but this month, for one day only, I saw a female Blackcap. Next, a solitary Brambling appeared. There have been unusually large numbers of Bramblings around the area this winter. In some cases, there numbers have been in the hundreds. My first Yellowhammer also appeared and it was a very bright male. I thought I had seen a Wren in the garden at the beginning of the month but was not certain, but it put in an appearance again about the middle of the month. It is not an easy bird to photograph as it never lights long enough in one place. Two Lesser Redpolls started to come in also and were feeding on the niger seeds. At the end of the month, a Fieldfare came into the garden. We had masses of apples on our apple tree last year and we had stored them to feed the birds. That same day thirteen Fieldfares came into the garden and started eating them but something scared them off and I never saw the large group again. More than likely it was the regular Sparrowhawk which flies pretty much daily through my garden. It does not linger anywhere so I cannot get a photograph. On one occasion it struck the window and appeared concussed but it managed to fly off eventually. Two Fieldfares appeared on the last day of the month but one kept chasing the other away.
These were mainly unusual birds to the garden but there were quite high numbers of regular birds in the garden also. There were twenty or more Tree Sparrows. I used to have a large amount of House Sparrows in my garden and they nested in the nest boxes, but the Tree Sparrows have driven the House Sparrows away. I am hoping they will use the nest boxes too. There were also twenty plus Goldfinches and thirty-five or more Chaffinches. It is not often I see these birds in such large numbers and the weather was not particularly cold.
Although most of my birdwatching took place in the garden this month I did manage to see a distant Merlin at Findhorn. There has been one hanging around there for a while. I also got a glimpse of a Grey Partridge in a field at Easter Lawrenceton and a Dipper at Sanquhar Pond.
So