At last, a clear morning at Fly Flatts with a S>3 and 50% cloud at 12 degrees.
Meadow Pipits were piling over at 2 levels, some low near head height and others very high and hard to pick out. As this was the only species moving over my air space I failed to do a count otherwise I would have spent my time concentrating on this single species and seen nothing else.
After the Swifts have gone ,as well as the bulk of the Swallows and early Mipits,
visible migration fails to show at this site other than Pinkies and small counts of winter thrushes so from now I will be just doing casual observations and only put reports on Trektellen when/if anything special shows up. Most migrants fail to come through the Fly Flatts cut between the east and the west ridge other than ground hopping passerines around the shoreline.
Having said that there was plenty to check this morning with 6 Stonechat plus Reed Bunting, Wrens and a single Chiffchaff which was very late or an over wintering semi migrant.
Raptor wise 3 Buzzard were up together along with Kestrel, Sparrowhawk and Merlin.
I asked on last nights blog, 'where have all the big gulls gone', so thanks to KM for putting me in the picture saying there are several big gulls around the Cullingworth area where he has had 2 Yellow Legged recently plus 1, possibly 2, Caspian at Redcar Tarn.
With the ongoing fuel problem I will have to try keep birding to a minimum,mileage wise, until it settles down as with 2 birding sessions a day plus our daily midday outing shopping etc I tend to clock up a lot of mileage, around 250 miles per week so I headed for Oxenhope reservoir where the Cullingworth gulls would head for to roost.
It turned out to be a wise move as, not only did I get the big gulls but other species as well along with a very distant, long necked duck, which I found to be a female Pintail, an excellent duck for my area.
Not too many gulls on the water at my final count but I left at 1500 hrs with gulls starting to pour in from the fields as I was leaving.
Fly Flatts
several Mipits..............>SSW
1 Sparrowhawk
2 Kestrel
3 Buzzard
1 Merlin
1 Chiffchaff
5 Reed Bunting
6 Stonechat
4 Wren
+ usual sp
Oxenhope reservoir
9 Golden Plover
1 Buzzard
72 Lapwing
84 LBB gull
46 Herring gull
c 200 BH gull
18 Common gull
5 f Goosander
1 f Pintail
2 Greylag
+ usual sp.