LEESHAW RESERVOIR Female Common Scoter
Plenty gulls present
Swallows moving through
Eventually headed off East.
DENHOLME. Osprey still hanging around.
In for the dive
Belly Flop
Out with nothing
juv markings, white wing tips
Unfortunately all taken against sun angle, hence shadows
A carbon copy of recent days weather with low cloud, NE>3 and drizzle so worth a morning visit to Leeshaw to see if anything was moving below the cloud base.
A good rare visitor on the water as I arrived with a female Common Scoter which stayed throughout the watch and left >E just as I was tackling up.
Plenty Black Headed and Lesser Black Backed gulls present but no Herring gulls to be found although September is Yellow Legged season with usually one or two showing.
Plenty hirundines heading >S in migration mode whilst the only waders on the shoreline were Lapwings.
Mid afternoon and another visit to the gull fields and water at Thornton and Denholme. Very few gulls in the fields as yet and the large ploughed field at Denholme Gate is already grassed over.
Denholme put the icing on the cake when MPs Osprey surprisingly appeared after a 5 day stay and thinking it was gone after no sightings yesterday. The bird is moving between Denholme, Ogden and Hewenden and possibly TMR .
It performed 2 dives whilst I was present but failed to catch anything even though the surface of the water was bubbling with shoals of Roach surface feeding.
So quite a finish to August and tomorrow we,re into the peak migration month where anything can turn up whilst moving through Another 3 weeks and we,ll be counting skeins of Pinkies overhead.
Leeshaw reservoir
1 f Common Scoter
19 LBB gull
139 BH gull
17 Lapwing
sev Goldfinch
1 Kestrel
sev Mipits
72 Swallows.................>S
12 House Martins.........>S
+ usual sp.