Leeshaw Reservoir. 1530-1630 hrs. Bright sunshine, 10 % cloud cover, W>3.
With the roads closed around Leeshaw until 1500 hrs it was against my better judgement to try to get there at 1515 hrs, BAD IDEA !
There was some sort of Nuggets festival going on with hundreds of party goers in fancy dress doing a giant pub crawl between the Dog and Gun, Lamb Inn and the one by Leeshaw road which I forget its name. Cars were everywhere and traffic grid locked but eventually I got there with high blood pressure and neck pumping after a lot of abuse to other drivers. Needless to say, my journey home was over the tops past Fly Flatts where there was only car loads of druggies to contend with.
Calming down I continued birding and right on schedule at 1600 hours the gulls began to arrive though less numbers than yesterday and several moving straight through >W without even stopping on the water. All the gulls were again LBBs and BHGs and the ones that stayed again went out of sight up in the NW corner.
At 1620 hrs the 4th summer Yellow Legged Herring gull came in nearly sneaking past me as I watched a distant Snipe but got the bins on it just in time before it landed out of sight not to re appear again. A single House Sparrow was an unusual species and probably a first for this site for me.
Not the best of birding weekend but it can only get better. Watch this space.
BS