A wild morning with once again lots of clag to the west and bright skies to the east. Leeshaw was just missing the fast moving scud clouds blown across by a moderate SW>4 gusting 5 at 10 degrees.
A very poor show of gulls today with just 26 Black Headed, 3 Commons and 2 2cy Herring with nothing on the water and near empty skies. The usual Little Owl was present along with about 20 Goldfinch and a single Snipe.
There was some good news, the farmer is muck spreading the surrounding fields with some foul smelling stuff so hopefully it will bring the gulls in.
Ogden p.m. was also very short of gulls with a handful of LBBs and a few small gulls with nothing unusual among them.
A small group of around 30 mixed Redpoll and Siskin were present in the usual Alders but only seen as they kept flitting across the tree tops. Once they had dropped into the tops of the trees they became invisible among the leaves. These birds could be the start of the wintering flock or migrants passing through.
Another good sign is the winter Chaffinch flock starting to build, feeding on their favourite weeds on the banking. As long as the water keeps low there,s a good chance of Brambling in with them as there was the last time the water was low over the winter in Feb 2017 when at least 30 Brambling were in with good numbers of Chaffinch, all roosting in the car park trees.
BS