January 2025

January, definitely too dark as I head to work and a little too dark as I return from work, which means the birds are not very active and hard to find. I managed to eke out a few sightings by the end of the month when the day’s light had been stretched out a little: a Great Northern Diver at Grande Rocques on 24th and a first-winter Common Gull on Cobo beach on 27th. On 12th January I managed to spot the long-staying Avocet on the L’Eree saltmarsh as we whizzed by.

The most surprising sighting was seeing a Mute Swan swimming in Grandes Rocques Bay on the last day of the month which took off and flew East. It was probably the bird which had wintered on the golf course ponds at Grande Mare, getting itchy feet and looking to depart. I called in to see if it had alighted on the flooded fields at Barras Lane and was surprised to see 7 Shoveler swimming there.

Mute Swan - Grandes Rocques, 31 Jan 25

Mute Swan - Grandes Rocques, 31 Jan 25

Shovelers - Barras Lane, 31 Jan 25

Grey Plovers - Rousse 28 Jan 25

Grey Plovers - Rousse 28 Jan 25

With nothing new arriving to go and see, I spent quite a bit of time at the microscope, focusing on a big bag of flies I had collected over the summer. Flies are a massive group with lots of families and can be a bit tricky but can be identified a lot easier nowadays with many online keys available. I managed to identify 17 new species, the best being the one below, Limnophora obsignata, from the Grande Mare in May last year, which is a non-British species and looks like a possibly a new species for Guernsey.

Limnophora obsignata - Grand Pre, 18 May 24