Ogden and Fly Flatts.

  OGDEN                    21 ad Herring gull present.

 FLY FLATTS.        18 Mallard not worried with the weather

                                                   as well as 2 Canada geese

     Every cloud has a silver lining, or in my case
    Every silver lining has a cloud. This one battered me with hail stones.

             This one even had a face to see where it was going.

A morning of heavy to torrential rain and hail on a SW>5 at 7 degrees with the temp dropping to 2 degrees by late afternoon on a W>7 near gale at 32 m.p.h. with some very heavy hail and sleet showers.
Not much to show at Ogden but a good number of Herring gulls on the water, all adults, before heading off >SW. Good to see my first Song Thrushes of the year with 2 near the Lodge House.

 Despite AH promising me a fine afternoon the water was soon running off my coat at Fly Flatts, though to be fair to Annie there was some dry and bright periods in among the showers and it didnt affect the birding.
           When I worked at the garage a lady customer, who did a lot of fell walking , remarked about the weather saying, " Theres no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothes," which is quite true to an extent, if you get well geared up the weathers not a problem.
               Bird wise, it was a problem with , as expected, a quiet watch though nows the time that I will have to get back up there for regular checks to see when things start appearing.
                The single Canada goose thats been on the shoreline a few days now making me think it was sick solved the problem today when it was there with a mate, the first of many to come.
A small group of 4 Greylags flew over >SW whilst 18 Mallard were on the water taking no notice of the weather.
                One exciting moment was as I was scanning the north shore pools through the bins a small wader size bird was in one of the ponds looking to be preening and flapping its wings.
Grabbing the scope, tripod and camera I shot through the boatyard to get a nearer view and after much difficulty pinpointing it with the wind wafting the scope I found it to be a piece of plastic trapped half behind a stone and flapping in the wind.
                Oh well, its the first time I,ve used the scope this year so was good practice having a dummy run before the real thing happens.
                Rain for a change tomorrow and strong SW gale force winds peaking at midday.

Ogden
21 Herring gull
2 Song Thrush
1 Gt Spotted Wdpecker
1 Canada Goose
+ usual sp.

Fly Flatts
4 Greylag.................>SW
2 Canada
18 Mallard
BS