At last, Wheatear for Soil Hill
Alive with Mipits.
With reports of Dotterel in the area, see Calderbirds, and the weather ideal for bringing or holding them down it was a quick tea and off for Soil Hill.
The rain was lashing in a strong SW>5 icy wind with the rain easing slightly and bringing clear skies.
A good start with a female Wheatear up dog cack alley shortly followed by another 2 females.
Meadow pipits and Skylarks were everywhere whilst 6 Lapwing were protecting territory overhead.
A full zig zag search of both summits failed to find the target bird, I even traced my steps from the last time I found one at this location, 17/04/2008.
A scan down the north slope gave me a quick sighting of the male Ring Ouzel whilst 2 Canada Geese were on the NK pond.
Well, no Dotterel tonight but some are sure to come through within the next few days so whether they drop in or not remains to be seen.
One thing for sure, with the May Day weekend coming up I,ll be giving it some stick.
BS