using the water.
showing juv 1st summer bird but quite a bit of black
on breast showing malting adult female.
1500 hrs at Fly Flatts with 100 % cloud cover and a SW>6 strong breeze at 28.9 m.p.h. with light rain. By 1615 hrs the wind strengthened considerably and the skies darkened with a deep weather front over Stoodley Pike heading my way with West Yorkshire Birding stamped on it.
I wisely decided to head back to the car from the west bank but as I got within 100 yards of it all hell let loose. The wind whistled like a hurricane whilst the rain came down in white sheets cutting visibility to a few yards and the sky was black as night.
Back at the car,under the shelter of the tailgate I threw the dogs in and toweled them down then wondered whether to see if it moved over but a giant flash of light and a crack of thunder told me stood at the side of a tripod at Fly Flatts in a thunderstorm was not the place to be. The drive home was exciting to say the least with Cold Edge Road in flood it was like shooting the rapids whilst the dip in the road at Mixenden by the old Hebble Brook pub was up to the car door bottoms so it was a matter of crawling through slowly whilst thinking of the price of a new catalytic converter when it cracks with the cold water which luckily it did,nt.
Bird wise at Fly Flatts the first bird I saw in the SW corner was a Golden Plover, a real unusual sight up there away from the moor and the first I,ve ever had actually in the water. Plenty Common Sands and young but no Dunlin although I did,nt get chance to scope the east shore and the compound was busy with boating day.
Several Herring gulls headed >SW right into the eye of the storm which did,nt seem to bother them whilst several Swifts moved >NE ahead of the weather front.
Its just to be hoped now that the water level does,nt rise too much washing out several Common Sandpiper nests although several now seem to have mobile young.
BS