The milder temperature brought in the thick fog on the tops this morning but Leeshaw was below the cloud base with a bright clear start until 0900 hrs when the low cloud and drizzle moved in but luckily did,nt blank visibility. The wind was a light S>3 at 4 degrees. Most of the snow and ice have gone apart from some exposed areas.
An exceptional small gull count this morning with around 600 in the fields and on the water but only 23 Herring which moved straight through >W.
The water held 38 Greylag, 2 Canadas, 2m and 1f Goosander along with a single Cormorant and a few Mallard whilst several Fieldfare , Starlings and Mistle Thrush were in the surrounding fields.
The highlight of the morning was a noisy skein of Pinkies which I could hear but not see until suddenly they appeared out of the cloud with a massive skein of 154 heading >NW. The formation broke up briefly as a helicopter flew over making the geese change direction but they soon reorganized themselves and disappeared into the mist in a NW direction.
On the way back from an afternoon shopping trip in Keighley we went around all the gull hot spot fields including Sugden, Cullingworth, Flappit, Five Flags and Thornton and only came up with a handful of gulls.
MC did better today at Oxon with a stonking Sabines gull already in summer breeding plumage, full black hood. Mick reminded me of one in BOG in 1987 at Chelker reservoir, found by MP and missed by BS.
BS