What I class as a poor day with blue and milky skies, 2 okts cloud cover, sunshine and light W>3 turning WSW with good visibility at 8 degrees.
Unexpectedly it turned out to be a cracking day for the birds although yet another day with no waders. The mornings watch was hard work with a mix of clear blue and milky skies allowing the Mipits to come over very high and hard to pick out with the bright background. The Swallows were the opposite coming low over the water and some skimming past me waist high, the first real taste of vis mig.
A quiet start then the flood gates opened with Mipits coming over in groups of up to 10 whilst Swallows came through low in groups of 4 or 5 in fast migration mode.
With scanning high for the Mipits I picked out 3 Swift which otherwise I would have missed due to the height.
The afternoon watch was quieter but unusual to have a good selection of gulls on the water
and several geese on the east bank.
Just after a grapevine text from AC reporting 6 Buzzard over Northowram I also started to get raptors over with 3 Buzzard overhead and 2 well out over the moor all high and heading >S followed by 4 Kestrel together closely followed by a Sparrowhawk , again all high and directly >S with 3 Kestrel up over the banking but these 3 were locals.
This coincides with 26 moving Buzzards over SJs watch point at Bury, Greater Manchester, see Trektellen. Simon Johnson is an ex Bradford birder who I used to have the pleasure of doing vis mig with at TMR many years ago. A sad loss for our area when Simon moved away with another excellent birder moved on.
On the way home late morning I stopped off at the Black Redstart site where it was showing but flighty and distant along with 2 juv and 1 adult Stonechat , 4 Wheatear and several Mipits. Its surprising that this bird has stayed so long but a bonus for several birders to see it.
I have had 5 text or e mails for birders further afield asking me for directions to the bird and all have gone away happy. The furthest travelled was Aron, a blog watcher and southern birder who was visiting family in Bradford and wanted to see the Black Redstart and Wheatears , the latter being rare birds down south. I gave him directions and he let me know he had good views of both his target birds today. It just shows that they don,t always get better birds than us down south, just 98% of the time. Well done Aron.
Vis Mig.
4 Kestrel.................................>S
5 Buzzard..............................>S
1 Sparrowhawk.....................>S
3 Swift..................................>S
36 Swallows........................>S
111 Mipits............................>S
7 Linnet...............................>W
31 Goldfinch.......................>W
15 LBB gull........................>SW
8 BH gull............................>N
Bloggers.
8 Canada geese
2 Barnacle geese
3 Stonechat
1 Black Redstart
11 BH gull
9 LBB gull
3 Herring gull
4 Wheatear
3 Kestrel.
40+ Goldfinch........ at Black Red site.
BS