A bright sunny start to the morning slowly clouding but keeping clear and bright on an icy cold WNW>4 at 2 degrees with a heavy ground frost.
Very lively at Leeshaw ,as usual, though nothing out of the ordinary. Plenty gulls but struggling for Med gull and Yellow Legged Herring at this site, hopefully I'll get an appearance of an Iceland gull early in the new year, which is the time they usually show. Around 150 Greylags were in the goose field before moving off towards the fields at Upper Marsh, whilst 2 Cormorant headed >W.
On arrival, 9 Mistle Thrush were in the trackside tree along with 5 Blackbirds whilst 2 Meadow Pipits were by the water, possibly over-wintering birds. A noisy Raven went overhead and a flock of around 40 Lapwing were on the shore but very mobile.
Once everything had been checked over I moved on to check the water and gulls at Leeming reservoir but, as with Leeshaw, nothing in the way of waterfowl other than Mallards, but plenty gulls present with a good count of 14 Herring, 10 LBB and around 100 small gulls.
The only other bird of note was a single Jay which was in the waterside trees, a rare bird for me this year, although other than Ogden I rarely go woodland birding.
A cool minus 1 degree for morning but dry and part cloudy with snow expected late evening lasting through the night into Tuesday. Conflicting reports on the light wind with one forecaster reporting east and another reporting north west ?
BS