were Raven
All photos about 1 mile away..
With one hour spare late afternoon I had to decide between Ogden, Ringby or Shibden Head so for a change and to check out a previous years Redstart area I plumped for Shibden Head, bad decision.
With no sign of Redstart, or anything else for that matter , and me not getting excited with woodland birding I got to a open area where I could see plenty open sky,thats the real me.
It soon became apparent that all the action was taking place about a mile away over the Swalesmoor Ringby area, so there was I down the bottom of Shibden Valley watching and photographing birds a mile above and to the west of me and in poor light.
First over were 2 Sparrowhawks gliding around very high and being mobbed with the Ringby corvids till suddenly 1 bird dived down at an amazing speed straight into the top of the tree canopy with the second bird following slowly behind not emerging for another 15 minutes.
Shortly after that all the corvids were up again and the familiar cronking of Ravens could be heard with 2 birds over from the ski slope area across Swalesmoor getting mobbed by around 100 corvids.
Next in line for a good mobbing , this time with corvids, Sparrowhawk and Kestrel ,was a single Buzzard which kept showing briefly before landing in trees below Swalesmoor and moving on tree to tree towards the ski slope.
100s of Swallows overhead.
An entertaining hour but how I wish I,d have been up at my watchpoint on Swalesmoor, but then I suppose the action would have been down in the valley, but thats birding.
BS