And so it continues, fog and rain that is.
Early morning and the rain lashing down with thick fog on the tops and even lower down in places.
Another day where conditions made it pointless attempting vis mig, unfortunately right at peak time, with several big move days missed including Pink Footed geese which moved in their thousands past several lower watch points but nothing for us.
With Fly Flatts well and truly fogged off, and not wanting to attempt Ogden on a Sunday morning, even in the bad weather, I plumped for a dog walk in Wibsey Park.
I,m definitely not into duck pond birding but it was the nearest non boggy place I could think of as I,m in the middle of bathing and grooming all 3 dogs so did,nt want to get them caked up.
Just in case, I threw the bins round my neck as well as a change of rig for the poor light, taking my Canon 7d mk1 with a Canon 70-200mm f4 L with a Canon 1.4 tele converter in my pocket in case I really got lucky ( dream on).
Although it was just below the cloud base it was very dark and lashing down with rain throughout with my one reward being locating the juv Mute Swam Y271
which I found on Fly Flatts last week before it moved to Ogden and it is now on the park lake with 6 adult Mute Swans, one of which is his half brother from 3 years ago. I informed Judy Hogg who had already seen him yesterday but gave me the info about one of the adult swans.
Otherwise it was just the usual park lake tame stuff but the dogs got a good walk and we all kept nicely clean but soaked.
A drier afternoon and looking clear across the west bank as we drove up from Halifax so off to try my luck at Fly Flatts. On arrival the sky was dark and a light drizzle on a SE>3 breeze. Just time to check the water and shorelines before the drizzle turned to heavy rain the within 30 minutes the dreaded fog reappeared so it was another early bath.
Bird wise there were just 3 Tufted on the water along with 18 Mallard and 2 BH gull fly overs with empty shorelines.
Waders have been a real disappointment this autumn with an amazing spring and summer then nothing since and getting too late to pick any up now. With amazingly perfect conditions Fly Flatts is obviously not an autumn stop off point.
On a brighter note, with Snow Buntings starting to show locally I,ll be keeping an eye on the west bank for a first arrival, that is if I can get on there for the work which is planned to kick off tomorrow , and providing the fog ever goes away. My earliest Snow Bunting was November 2nd with several early sightings after that for early November .
A possibly drier day tomorrow but still a SE wind which usually means FOG !
BS