A poor day today with torrential rain showers and some sleet and snow thrown in for good measure driven by a WNW>5. Temperatures up slightly after dark. Counting down now to the shortest day.
Looking back at December 2011 Soil Hill produced 3 Snow Buntings on the 4th followed by 9 on the 18th, 4 on the 25th, yes, saddo Brian was on Soil Hill Christmas day, 6 on the 26th, yes, up there again Boxing day, and 9 again on the 27th. These counts are from my records only, on the days I could get up there but the birds were present all month and continued to be recorded throughout January, February and on into March with my last sighting of 1 male on the 18th.
Golden Plover were also roosting on the hill during December with up to 30 recorded in amongst the 300+ Lapwing flock at Shelf Moor.
Otherwise things were quiet with Ogden failing to provide me with Goldeneye until January when things picked up a bit.
Hopefully Soil Hill will attract the Bunts down this month and give me an excuse to sneak out over Christmas to stop me climbing the walls although with Christmas on Tues/Wed this year I,ll only get the two days off.
BS