A decent morning with a NW>3 and 3 okts cloud cover with sunshine but cold in the wind.
No access to Fly Flatts today with the track being resurfaced so the plan was to park on the top road and walk down the north end public track, which is shortly to be closed until November, but things did,nt go as planned. The bottom of the track is completely water logged and deep in mud, and although I could have worked round it the dogs had no chance so that was plan B scuppered.
Next move was to leave the car where it was and walk along Nab Water Lane to the Chat hot spot where I met BV who was scoping 3 Whinchat on a distant wall, dropping down into the juncus. A SEO I had seen earlier from the north track appeared , again very distant, being mobbed by Mipits. This is the first Shortie I,ve had up there since the early summer.
No Stonechats today but always nice to get Whinchat.
Back up at the car I scoped the shoreline the best I could at the distance but found no sign of waders. At least with Fly Flatts out of bounds it got me out of solitary confinement giving me a chance to meet up with BV, AT and a birder from Wakefield who was an ex Queensbury man.
BV went on to the Black Redstart site and found the bird on the tractor which prompted AT to go back for a second attempt also finding the bird on the building adjoining the house.
So all that, along with a bit of vis mig , the morning went well.
But, as my old boss used to say, " Every silver lining has a cloud",
and today was no exception. With Fly Flatts being out of bounds I thought I,d give Cold Edge Dams a check until I found that someone had kindly blocked all the parking spaces with boulders which seemed a strange idea after 40 years or more.
Next idea was to go check for the Black Redstart to try get some better photos but that soon turned sour with fog and torrential rain on the tops. Running out of ideas I ended up back at Ned Hill track to get the dogs walked then back home, yet another early finish.
Vis Mig
66 Mipits................................>S
21 Swallows..........................>S
4 House Martins...................>S
7 Skylark..............................>W
38 Linnet.............................>W
Bloggers
3 Whinchat
1 Black Redstart
6 BH gull
2 LBB gull
Present
4 Kestrel
1 Short Eared Owl
sev Mipits
BS