A glorious morning at Fly Flatts with 100% blue sky and sunshine at an icy cold minus 2 degrees on a biting N>3. All the puddles frozen solid and frost on the grass but no ice on the lagoon and reservoir.
I know I said I was going to put Fly Flatts on a back burner for a while but with Whoopers on the move I thought it was worth a check and a change from scoping through hundreds of gulls.
Very little about but more than my last visit ,with signs of things starting to appear.
A few gulls over this morning which is a bonus for this site with 4 Herring, 1 LBB and 15 Commons all >NE over the water. Just a single Canada goose on the water along with a pair of Mallard whilst Red Grouse were noisy on the moor.
Just as I was tackling up I saw a distant black spot in the sky over 'Tatty Pie Hill',
what a great name that is, so grabbing the bins and expecting to see a Buzzard I struggled to start with whether Red Kite or Buzzard with its very shallow forked tail, but as it got a bit closer I could see it was a pale 1st winter Red Kite which drifted off >SW down the Calder Valley where it was picked up from Cold Edge Dams by DJS.
Just what the doctor ordered, a decent bird to get my Fly Flatts head back on.
On the way home I stopped off at the Mixenden Parakeet site and managed to get 2 together in one of the usual trees. This is my first sighting this year after several checks, looking from Mixenden reservoir,
and I was beginning to wonder if they were still around.
No birding this aft with a project on in the daughters garden but tomorrow is looking good weather wise again.
BS