New Year Birding

It has already become a good tradition for me on January 1, every year, when most people leave for a good New Year's Eve to go to the first bird watching in the new year. This year, like last year, I was in Zhytomyr, so I decided to drive around. Since I was already in most directions, except the northern one, I decided to take a drive in the direction of Korosten. The company was made by my wife and Oleg Martun.

In the city, as usual, in the morning one could easily see rooks, shovels of pigeons. At the departure of the city alone sat a gray magpie. As they were leaving the city, it seemed that the birds also had a good game for the new year and did not rush to show. A little while later, they saw the first buzzard sitting on a tree and reluctantly took off when he noticed our interest in it. Also in the fields, and not only, the hooks were constantly spinning. I have to say, I recognized the hook of our day bird by the number of meetings with him. In the second place there were only forty. On the way, there were bruises and sparrows.

When they reached the first district center, Chernyakhov, they saw a large flock of birds on wires and trees. At first I thought that the turtles were garden (I have not seen one in the south of Ukraine once), but when they got closer, it turned out that they were mistletoe. Nice surprise !!!

From the main highway they turned left in the area of ​​Nova Borova and stopped at a reservoir on the river Irsha. There they met 4 swans, 2 mallards and several gogols. With the latter it was difficult to determine the number, as they were constantly diving, and long to watch in the strong wind, I had no desire. They drove a little along the reservoir, but a little distance from it. In the village they met another bevy of omeluchs, this time with 3 individuals. On the outskirts of the villages were greeted by a flock of common buntings, blueberries, greens, hemp, field sparrows. Even one garden throat was seen throughout the trip.

In the village. The courtyard peeked at another reservoir on the river Irsha, there was a bunch of mallards, probably several hundred. It was also possible to see the tree and the blackbird. Further to Zhitomir they stopped several more times, then saw the winter man, then came to the reservoir and found more swans, spines, and near in the forest of the creeper they saw and heard different tits. In Zhitomir looked into the hydropark. Due to the absence of frost, there are no ice floes on the river, the birds are not concentrated in one place. However, it was possible to isolate the fistula in a flock of mallards. Flying tit, blackbirds, creepers. As frantic they chased squirrels, as always. We walked a little bit over the river, got back in the car and went on to celebrate the new year!

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