the fog and half dark for possible Snow Bunt.
A bright sunny day with a S>4 blowing. First light, the moon was bright and still going down to the west whilst a bright red ball sunrise was to the east, this usually means a moving day is on the cards and today it was.
December is always our best month up here for Pink Footed geese and so far this month this has been lived up to with 2 good skeins , 108 day before yesterday and 184 today, all trans pennine birds moving from the east coast to the west.
Driving up from Halifax this afternoon just after 1400 hrs I got a call from my super efficient watcher Peter Turner at Shelf Moor reporting Pinkies heading my way. No sooner had I switched the phone off, car phone that is, not mobile, and there they were just ahead of us so a quick left turn up Roper Lane, I wont say what Lynda said about that, took off over the speed bumps and a quick anchor on and dive out of the car with the camera just as they were heading over the Causeway Foot col towards Fly Flatts. A quick grapevine message out and then a call from Pete Grba who had just had a separate skein of 150 Pinkies >N over Ringstone. Thanks to Peter Turner yet again for the quick alert.
A 1430 hrs trip to Ogden was quickly aborted after a call from Daniel Branch reporting a Lapland Bunting fly over at Soil Hill and he was up there searching to see if it had come down, so it was head for the hill to join in the search.
It looked as though the bird had continued on when a thorough search of the hill drew a blank but we did turn up a Skylark, 4 Fieldfare, 2 Meadow Pipits and a Reed Bunting whilst DB also got the pinkies overhead earlier.
The Reed Bunting was near the mast before going down onto my Nyjer seed on the east summit then flying near to the mounds, the exact same action as my possible Snow Bunt so it looks as if the two were the same bird, the Reed Bunt having very pale flanks.
All in all, a pleasing day.
BS