A real wet and windy day throughout with very dark clouds and heavy rain on a SSW >4 at 2 degrees early morn at Leeshaw.
As always at this site, plenty to see but very much the same as previous visits with the addition of a Buzzard high over the moor and a single Snipe, also over the moor. Wildfowl on the water is just not happening at the moment with just the usual Mallard, geese and Cormorant along with a few gulls, which again were on a low count with around 100 small gulls and 9 Herring, but always worth a scope through.
Once again there were large flocks of Starling, Jackdaw and Fieldfare moving around the fields but nothing moving skyward in the heavy rain.
After a good soaking this morning I thought we would go for another session mid afternoon, the dogs had to go out anyway, so we just had one hour at Ogden, again in heavy rain.
A group of 5 Teal seemed a good start until I thought about the c 400 that MC has on his Oxon patch plus a mound of other wildfowl including several Pintail, Wigeon, Gadwall, Goldeneye, Shoveler and Pochard, see Oxon blog for yesterday.
The Kingfisher was on its usual sluice gate perch before skimming over the water towards the north end, whilst the west bank held the usual Tit/ Goldcrest flocks but Chaffinch are now down to just a handful with the large flock moved on, now that their favourite weeds are well under water.
Sounds like a continuation of the rain tomorrow on a strong westerly.
BS