A bright day with low temperatures but again a slight thaw and I finally cleared the long drive from the garage so I will be able to get the car out tomorrow, having said that, its snowing heavy at the moment but suppose to turn to rain during the night and higher temperatures tomorrow although I think it will be a while before I can get into Fly Flatts.
Whilst I,ve been grounded its given me chance to sort through the many books I,ve got and the above got me sucked into reading through it.
I started birding in 1963 which I believe the sixties, as well as music, was the best ever birding era. I was fortunate to be weened into birding by the four, never to be repeated, legendary ornithologists and naturalists, Irvin Morley, Clifford Lees, Vernon Crapnell, and Frank Murgatroyd who ran the
Halifax Scientific Society, Clifford Lees also wrote a weekly birding column in the Halifax Courier.
The four were exceptionally knowledgeable at all aspect of nature out on the field and especially birds, which in the sixties, all you had, equipment wise when out birding, was a pair of very heavy and poor quality binoculars plus a note book and pen along with an i.d book such as The Observers Book of Birds. The HSS also had an ex Navy telescope for use on field trips to estuaries. It was a brass telescopic job and extended to about 6ft in length and to steady it the younger members of the group, myself and HC included, had to kneel down and rest it across our shoulders, happy days.
In the sixties, birds such as Yellowhammer, Tree Sparrow, Lesser Whitethroat etc were a very common sight, whilst there were even Turtle Doves breeding in Calderdale, although Sparrowhawk, Merlin and Red Kite etc were very rare. Also there was very few sub species along with no talk of Yellow Legged Herring, Caspian and Med gulls.
Several mega rare sightings occurred during the sixties throughout Calderdale, mostly at Ogden, Whiteholme and Ringstone but one outstanding species, rarely seen today, was Bewicks swan, with
15 Fly Flatts....1960
7 Ringstone.....1961
4 Ogden..........1962
66 Ringstone..1964
All references.. Vertebrate Fauna of the Halifax Parish. Irvine Morley. 1965
Next time I,ve no birds to report I,ll tell you about a HSS field trip to Sunderland Point on the Lune estuary in the early sixties which went completely wrong and HC and myself, plus the rest of the group had a very near death experience.
BS