A late start at Fly Flatts this morning with a serious road accident on the main Keighley Road at the crossroads that comes down from Soil Hill. This caused nose to tail traffic throughout the area taking an extra 3/4 of an hour to get to Fly Flatts and the road still blocked on my way home.
As expected, the weather was awful with blue skies and wall to wall sunshine at 20 degrees rising to 26 degrees late afternoon on a light SE>2.
Wheatear were the bird of the morning with 7 present in the SW corner, one of which stood out as a bigger, sturdier , more colourful bird which I believe to be a Greenland, (leucorhoa) even though the majority of Greenlands are near the last to come through.
A nice group of Herring gulls came through with more at Denholme in the afternoon.
Otherwise the usual movers with just a pair of Tufted on the water and a Stoat in the boatyard.
The boatyard has a strange feeling at the moment after one of the sailors collapsed and sadly passed away there at the weekend.
A close shave mid afternoon at Doe Park, as I arrived, with the Osprey overhead as I walked down the track so a quick dash down to the dam wall just in time to get some shots, most of which were deleted due to facing the glare of the sun, and see it dive twice coming out with a small fish on the second attempt. After that it headed to Hewenden with the fish, not to return before I left at 1500 hrs.
MP had watched the bird dive 5 times unsuccessfully in the morning and suggests that this is possibly the reason for the long stay if its not getting its body weight up ready for the next stage of its journey which sounds reasonable. See what difference tomorrows thunderstorms and rain make.
Nice to get 4 Siskin high over the water from the west landing in the tree line at the top of the east ridge. Also a continuation of the Herring gull move but now heading >SE.
Fly Flatts Vis Mig
7 Wheatear..................blogging
34 Herring gull............>SW
15 LBB gull................>SW
78 Mipit....................>S
112 Swallow.............>S
4 Alba Wag...............>SW
Present
1 pr Tufted duck
1 BH gull
1 Stoat
+ usual sp
Doe Park
1 Osprey
2 Buzzard
1 Kingfisher
1 Dipper
1 Cormorant
5 Siskin
28 Herring gull.......>SE
+ usual sp.
BS