Probably the biggest Pink Footed Goose moving day I,ve ever experienced starting at 0823 hrs and ending at 1850 hrs continuous throughout the day. All the skeins were to the west moving west and northwest apart from one skein over Shelf and at least one skein over Baildon Moor.
By lunch time the Pinkie move is usually over but instead this actually increased with skein after skein moving until last light.
With work this a.m, in between manning the phone, and the pup to take to Dewsbury this afternoon for its injection I was tied up until 1600 hrs and thinking it was all over I nipped to Ogden to see if any of the reported Whoopers, via HC, had been left behind but not to be.
A text from DJS saying Pinkies were still moving over Fly Flatts sent me scurrying up onto the golf course for a good vantage point where almost immediately I started picking them up. 3 Skeins passed me there to the far side of Hunter Hill soon disappearing out of sight behind the landscape, the skeins were 52, 47, and 31.
With time up I headed back but stopped at the Roper Lane watch point where I picked up another 4 skeins but mega distant using the valley between Stoodley Pike and Fly Flatts as a wind break. One skein was even as far away as beyond Stoodley Pike into Lancashire where I should imagine the west coastline would be in sight to them.
An amazing team effort with :-
22 grapevine messages in from DJS
12 text messages in
5 phone calls in.
11 grapevine messages out
7 text messages out
4 phone calls out
Manning the watch was :-
DJS.........Lee Mount and Fly Flatts
HC...........Oxenhope Watch point, also clocking a Hobby towards Fly Flatts.
AC .........Northowram
DF..........Jay House Lane
JM..........Jay House Lane
MS.........Jay House Lane
PT..........Shelf
VJ.........Highroad Well
BS........Ogden golf coarse and Roper Lane, Queensbury.
Apologies for omissions for anonymous text messages with no initials.
I,ll leave the total count up to DJS who I believe is working on it, see Calderbirds blog.
HCs count up to 1200 hrs was 14 skeins , 460 individuals
BS count 1600 -1700 hrs was 7 skeins, 350 individuals
All the skeins were small in size compared to the treble figures we usually get, sometimes in excess of 300 geese.
BS