Headed for Ogden mid p.m. to check out Crossbills but as I got to the bottom of Ned Hill parked cars were everywhere and I could see crowds of tourists around the Giants Tooth so a quick about turn found be back to the solitude of Soil Hill.
Like Fly Flatts , the hill had a different feel to it with all the birds constantly on the wing and even a Skylark up singing. The famous 4 seemed out of place now and will surely soon be gone, today they were very flighty spending most of the time in the air.
I missed 12 Golden Plovers on the deck when they suddenly came past me like the Red Arrows at waist height.
Half an hour skywatch over the Causeway Foot col produced good numbers of Fieldfare, as this morning, all >NE and all to the distant west.
Lapwings were moving in the same area with long threads of them against the blue sky, several seemed to be over Stoodley Pike.
On the hill
4 Snow Buntings
18 Linnet
5 Meadow Pipit
7 Skylark
2 Grey Partridge
1 Kestrel
12 Golden Plover
From the col
c 300 Fieldfare.........................NE
c 200 Lapwing.........................NE
BS