Excuse all photos taken at distance through a wall of
horizontal drizzle.
.With the shopping done and the bonus of a Peregrine harassing pigeons around the Piece Hall spire it was one of those late afternoons where you look out of the window at the strong winds and horizontal drizzle and think, shall I not bother , but then little messages start popping up in my head saying, good gull weather , and possible Kittiwake and Diver weather ,so the next thing I knew was I was at the side of Leeshaw Reservoir.
The weather was once again atrocious with a howling W>7 and clouds of drizzle coming off the moor and blasting across the water but the reason I chose Leeshaw as my venue is that you can park by the reservoir and shelter under the tailgate behind the car if you position it right. This can only be achieved with a west or east wind as a north or south hits you sideways on with no chance of shelter.
With tripod up and camera mounted and set on ridiculous settings in the dreadful light it was wait and see what appeared. Herring gulls were coming through steady along with LBBs, most of these big gulls moving straight through >W although one or two stopped briefly on the water. Commons and Black Headeds tended to stay longer on the water but even these moved off >W making me think the Oxenhope winter roost is now starting to break up. Its amazing how these gulls are not affected with the conditions other than they keep facing the wind so as not to get their feathers ruffled causing wear .
A Cormorant was on the water along with a few Mallard whilst 2 male and 1 female Goosander appeared from the western end of the water. A shortage of geese in this area this winter is apparent with just 2 Canadas today opposed to large groups previous winters.
A small group of c40 Lapwings were mobile on the moor but keeping low.
So despite the conditions, which only seemed to affect the birder and not the birds, an entertaining hours watch.
BS