A decent day weather wise at last with good visibility throughout. This morning skies were a nice light grey cloud at 3 degrees on a NE>5 with the wind making it feel much colder but if thats what it takes to keep the fog away, who cares.
The late afternoon watch had much darker skies with black clouds and rain by 1500 hrs on an increased NE>6 .
Nothing in the skies this morning other than a very high Heron >W and around 50 Fieldfare >N low over the western moor below the ridge. 2 Canadas were on the very choppy water whilst 2 Stonechat and 3 Mipits were hanging around the seed up the entrance track. The first Red Grouse for quite a while were seen with 3 low over the Flat Moor, a rare bird at Fly Flatts this year after a poor breeding season with large areas of the heather dying back due to the hot summer, hence no shoots up there this season.
The late afternoon was saved by big gulls with a record count for autumn due to the ideal conditions with still the hopes of a winter roost though several of the birds left after a dip in the water heading >E probably towards Eccup whilst several others were still on the north shore as I left near an early last light.
A count of 560 big gulls, split into 280 LBB
160 Herring
120 1st year birds, too dark, wet and distant to split
5 GBB
11 Common
27 BHG
A few Waxwings are showing on the east coast but most of out Rowan trees have already been stripped of berries or died back with the two popular trees at Lane Head, Brighouse showing no fruit and most of the Rowan berries in HX Sainsburys gone after a very early crop.
BS.