With constant overnight snow I was again grounded this morning with the roads 'deep and crisp and even' until mid morning when a thaw started bringing thick fog for a while. A dog walk over Foxhill found 42 Common gulls in the park and around 70 Lapwing on the Pit Lane football pitches.
With tracks to the Oxenhope reservoirs as well as Fly Flatts probably still under snow I wandered around Soil Hill on a bright afternoon with a light NE>3 and a good sunset.
With Snow Bunting the target bird I stuck to the summits doing a full search of both east and west summit as well as the bumps and tracks and all the previous hot spots for Snow Bunts of the past with no avail, with the deep snow leaving very few areas for the birds to feed. Also the job deteriorated when I had to share the summit with a quad bike although it was churning some nice deep trenches up for future Bunts to use.
After 1 hours trekking the whole top area I came away with 2 Carrion Crow plus a constant, but distant, stream of gulls heading for Oxenhope reservoir roost.
On the way out I met CK heading up the track to do the lower areas, with his target bird of Jack Snipe. A text from Chris later showed he had done a little better than me with 2 Stonechat, a Common Snipe and a Moorhen.
BS