Several local reports have come to me from Fly Flatts, Leeshaw Reservoir. Lower Laithe reservoir, Soil Hill and Ogden golf course.
Short Eared Owls are daylight hunters so much easier to see as they quarter the moorland and fields suddenly dropping onto their prey. They can often be seen perched very still on fence posts.
This was the 2012 Soil Hill bird taken in poor conditions which is most of the time on Soil Hill.
A better day in Queensbury today with early fog soon moving leaving a clear grey day with a cool E>4.
A few Redwings were about on the way to work in part dark along with a flock of 68 small gulls, mostly Commons moving between the rugby pitch and Foxhill park.
By lunch time it was down to 4 Common gulls in the park and some large numbers of Starlings hanging around garden feeders.
A customer text me today reporting a single drake Goldeneye on Lower Laithe reservoir whilst another is working on a farmhouse roof near Thrusscross reservoir and says there are Red Kite and Buzzards constantly overhead. It would take a long time to fix the roof if I was up there.
BS