An afternoon free so off to Ogden with the intentions of firstly checking the water and the circumference path before hiking up to the Giants Tooth to see what the Pine cone situation was with a view to visiting Crossbills.
The water was alive with Mallards with a rough count of 160 plus a few small gulls but nothing else out of the ordinary.
Passerines were none existent around the waterside path so it was the uphill trek next on the list heading for the Giants Tooth.
The pine cone situation , as with the Tree Pipit area, is very poor this year and other than a few on the last few trees before the summit there are not enough showing to tempt down a flock of Crossbills .
Going by this, any decent numbers of Crossbills are probably going to be around the Back Lane plantation area unless they give our area a miss and head to Walshaw where there looks to be an excellent harvest of cones.
Up at the Giants Tooth the WNW>5-6 howled across near to gale force but luckily lower down near the water was more sheltered.
Back at the waters edge a few LBB gulls had come in to bathe pre roost and the number of BH and Common gulls had risen. The Kingfisher was in its usual spot which was the bird of the day. Unbelievably, a full circuit of the water plus a trek up to the Giants Tooth produced 1 Robin, 1 Blackbird, 2 Carrion crow and the Kingfisher. After yesterdays amazing count of passerines at Back Lane I think that must be where all the birds are at present.
Never the less it was good to get the time to give Ogden a thorough top to bottom search and at least I know now where the Ogden Crossbill hotspot will be if any and Im sure that Ogden will soon provide again this December.
BS