Like this:

Hogmanay was spent in a cottage near Ardgay in Sutherland with Mum and Dad and their friends Jacqueline and Conor.

Lots of activity in the garden this morning around the feeders:

1. Coal tits (3, one flew into the window but recovered fairly quickly)
2. Great tit
3. Blue tit
4. Blackbirds (1 m, 1 f)
5. Chaffinches (2 m, 1 f)
6. Robin
7. Dunnock

Then we drove to Portnahomack, and had a walk up to the lighthouse along the beach and back.

A few things spotted from the car on the way:

1. Buzzard
2. Rooks
3. Whooper swans
4. Pink-footed geese

During the walk:

1. Oystercatchers
2. Redshanks
3. Curlews (also seen in fields by the road in)
4. Ringed plovers
5. Herring gulls
6. Lesser black-backed gulls
7. Greater black-backed gull
8. Kestrel
9. Eider
10. Wigeon
11. Goldeneye
12. Starlings (doing good impressions of curlew and gulls)
13. Cormorants
14. House sparrows
15. Tree sparrows
16. Goldfinch
17. Goldcrest
18. Carrion crows
19. Jackdaws (in Portnahomack)
20. Hooded crow
21. Wood pigeons
22. Hen harrier

Also great tits, blue tits, coal tits, dunnocks and robins among the sparrow flock at the lighthouse car park, and a couple more buzzards patrolling the shoreline. We also spotted several flocks we couldn’t identify on the way back at twilight, one that looked a bit like thrushes (redwings?, fieldfares?), and a couple that looked more like finches of two different sizes (greenfinches?, linnets?, goldfinches?, twite?).

So a grand total of 33 for today.