A cold start with frozen ponds and frosted grass at 2 degrees but pleasant with clear blue skies which strangely remained near bird less throughout the morning. By 0900 hrs boredom was setting in so I walked up the track to the top road to get the photos looking down on the water and to get plenty Nyjer seed down at the track sides with hopes of more Twite and an arrival of Snow Buntings.
Strangely, looking at Trektellen, most sites were getting record numbers of movers including Oxenhope just over the Nab but my sky remained empty. Fly Flatts is a poor vis mig watch point even at the peak of the season having nothing near the number of birds recorded at other sites and by the end of October it usually draws to a close apart from a few stragglers.
Late afternoon was much livelier with gulls on the move and good numbers of big gulls coming in around 1530 hrs and landing on the water either to roost or pre roost before moving on to a renown roost site such as Oxenhope or Eccup.
It was whilst watching the gulls come in that I picked up a bird over the water at medium height heading straight towards me. I dismissed it as a Starling but kept the bins on it and as it got near I could see it was a Ring Ouzel heading exactly the same flight path as my Ogden bird, straight West to East.
Unfortunately Bertha was up on the tripod as the bird went directly overhead so no chance of getting up at that angle and by the time I,d ragged if off the sticks the bird was disappearing through the wind turbines flying fast and direct.
Another good record for Fly Flatts with my last seen at this location on nearly the same date of
26th Oct 2017 with 2 by the feeding station.
Vis Mig
12 Starling ....................>NW
3 Mipit.........................>S
14 Goldfinch...............>S
7 Chaffinch................>NW
29 LBB gull...............>SW
13 Herring.................>SW
1 Ring Ouzel.................>E
Present.
2 Stonechat
32 LBB gull
14 BHG gull
26 Herring gull
8 Goldfinch
2 Canada geese
36 Mallard
4 Mipits.............blogging.
BS