Out and About

Common Gulls , Old Guy Rd

Dark clouds over the turbines

Shelf Moor p.m.

7 Linnets

sev Swallows

2 House Martin

15 Goldfinch in gorse field

No sign of Lapwings

Old  Guy Rd

11 Common Gull

2 Skylark

1 Dunnock

5 Meadow Pipit

1 very noisy Little Owl

Foxhill

1 feeding party of 70 + Swallows slowly drifting >S.

BS

The Big Yun

The Foxhill Crow come x Raven ?

Very little about today or rather very little time to watch with work, shopping and decorating.

A fall of Blackbirds was noticable this morning with 19 counted between our house and work and by lunch time they were gone.

The big crow was strutting about the park at lunch time looking as mean as ever, even the dogs give him a wide berth.

BS

Sunshine and Showers

Looking through the Arc, from Wilsden

Sunset on Pendle Hill, Dotterel country

A quiet day today with some torrential rain showers late afternoon with some spells of warm sunshine.

Unfortunately the weather was,nt too bad so I hope the few remaining Red Grouse that we have kept out of the way of the sad men who turn out in force today with an aim of killing as much as they possibly can, what a strange and sad way of finding pleasure!

Half an hours sky watch last night produced 78 LBB gulls >N and only 2 Black Headed, also >N.

Several Swallows flew in all directions but no Swifts were to be found.

Today the skies have been quiet apart from a few Mipits >S early morning and the now resident Common Gulls in Foxhill Park (7).

BS

Troubled Skies

Queensbury Reservoir

West towards wind turbines

Old Guy Rd cricket field.

A strong westerly wind tonight kept the birds down with none of yesterdays Willow Warblers showing unless they moved on overnight. A few Swallows were present, feeding under the park trees and two Pied Wagtails were on the bottom pitch.

Old Guy Rd fields held just 11 Common Gull and 5 Black Headed but practice on the cricket pitch was causing some disturbance, you,d think they would use a tennis ball so it would make less noise!

Looked like a good sky for Swifts tonight but none were found, it seems the last good moving day was Sunday 8th and the last ones recorded so far are Denise,10th and DJS, 11th.

Lets hope it pours down all day tomorrow to spoil it for the sad men on the unglorious 12th.

BS

Willow Warblers and Gulls

An hours walk  tonight produced several dispersing Willow Warblers and good numbers of gulls in the fields.

A total of 9 Willow Warblers were counted with 2 in my garden and others in gardens by Foxhill Park, these

are areas where this species are not normally found.

The fields between Old Guy Rd and Fleet Lane held 32 Common Gulls and 9 Black Headed though no big gulls were present. As I watched the gulls they slowly started moving off >NW at 1930hrs.

This morning saw a move of Swallows >SE over the garage and several were about tonight blogging.

I dont know how you,re all doing but I got my last Swift a week since now?

BS

Gulls back on site

Common in summer plumage

Gulls today were  back on site in Foxhill park where numbers should slowly increase now building up to around 150 Commons and  c30 Black Headed by mid winter.

A move of Pied Wagtails was evident with 5 on the top pitch at lunchtime and a single Grey Wagtail >W over Chapel Lane on my way back to work.

Meadow Pipits trickled over early a.m. but lower numbers than the weekend with an occasional Chaffinch in amongst.

BS

A suprise visitor to Soil Hill. pm visit.

Soil Hill watchpoint, highest vis mig site in West Yorkshire.

NK pond now deeper and clearing.

Soil Hill.  1530-1645 hrs Bright and sunny, SW>4

A pleasant hours watching on the hill with the nice suprise of a Little Grebe turning up on  the NK pond and even diving. Was scoping the pond watching 2 Moorhen that showed from time to time and also Swallows dipping in the water when the Dabchick appeared, obviously a passing through bird. Swallows were continuing to head >SE from this mornings report,DCB, and a Heron passed over very high and >SE.

The soil mounds around the pond were packed with corvids.

Movers :-
17 LBB Gull  .................>N
3 BH Gull......................>N
1 Herring Gull...............>W
21 Swallow...................>SE
1 Heron.......................>SE
1 Little Grebe..............> on water

Other :-
15 Woodpigeon
3 Stock Dove
2 Moorhen
38 Corvids
BS

Vis Mig, Fly Flatts

Calm Waters

The Watchpoint

Wheatears on the shore

0730 - 1015 hrs   Dead calm till 0830 then increase to S>3. Cloudy with good visibility.

First taste of real movement today with most of the movers recorded in the first hour of the watch.

Common Sandpipers, Wheatears and Mipits were along the shoreline moving through and good to get Cormorant moving,although I only had 2 DCB was getting good numbers at the other side of the hill. Swallows were also piling through past his watchpoint yet I never had a single bird other than the local bloggers.

Movers :-

4 Common Sandpipers ....................on deck

7 Wheatear......................................on deck

18 Meadow Pipit ............................on deck

47 Meadow Pipit.............................>W

1 Raven..........................................>NW

2 Cormorant..................................>W

4 Jay.............................................>W

2 Reed Bunting...............................>W

2 Alba Wagtails.............................>W

4 Grey Wagtails.............................>W

11 LBB Gull..................................>N

5 BH Gull......................................>N

Other :-

3 Red Grouse

84 Canadas

+ usual corvids etc

BS

First sign of movement over the Queensbury garage watchpoint

0715-0900hrs Observations to and at work

When movement starts over Queensbury M.O.T. Station you know things are starting to hot up with birds moving on a broader front. This morning saw the first of the Mipit movement with Skylarks and Woodpigeons also in evidence. Swifts have been absent over the village for a few days now so we,ll soon be recording our last.

Movers :-
Meadow Pipit..................... 45 >W
Skylark...............................6 >W
Woodpigeons.....................37 >S, could be dispersing birds as Woodpigs are usually one of the last to move.
Chaffinch............................5 >W
BS

And ne,re a gull was found !

Empty gull fields, Old Guy Rd

Rain piling up the Calder  Valley, and more empty fields

Fleet Farm and still no Gulls

After a hot tip off from NK about fields full of gulls, see Qby blog, I got my chores done then hitched up the team and set of in search of the white ones. By the time I got to the gulling area all had moved on probably to reservoirs before moving off to the roost. Apart from 3 LBBs overhead not a gull was found and very little in the way of other birds.

Roper Lane

125 Jackdaw

Several Rooks and Crows

9 Linnet.

Old Guy Rd

11 Linnet

5 Meadow Pipit

1 Dunnock

Fleet Lane

Sev feeding Swallows

26 Starling

2 Linnet

Foxhill Park

2 Pied Wagtail

3 Collared Dove

BS

Around the outskirts

Sunset over the Arc from Wilsden

My usual shopping delivery mercy dash to Heaton tonight produced :-

12 Lapwing over Soil Hill.......................>E

3 Grey Partridge,  5 LBBs >N    , Well Heads

1 Curlew , 4 Lapwing, 7 LBBs over Wilsden, all heading for TMR

2 Pied Wagtails, 3 Mistle Thrush, 1 Song Thrush, Flower Hill, Heaton

On the return journey 2 waders about the size of Ringed Plovers flew high and very fast over Soil Hill, >E.

I was awoke this a.m. at 0300hrs by a very noisy Little Owl which sounded to be in Foxhill Park, an usual record for this area !

BS

Usual evening dog walk

Plenty berries up here on the Rowans ready for the winter thrushes.

Black clouds to the east, Fleet Kennels.

Gulls back in the fields, Old Guy Road.

Things were a bit livelier tonight locally with Common and Black Headed gulls back in their usual fields although only in small numbers. Skylarks were on the Union Croft cricket field as well as Pied Wagtails and 2 Swifts headed >S. The highlight of the evening was a single Curlew heading >W and very high. This was a young short billed job which could easily have been mistaken for a Whimbrel which should be coming through our region anytime now, just listen for that 7 whistle call.

BH Gull.........................18

Common Gull.................14

Swift..............................2 >S

Curlew...........................1 >W

Skylark..........................4

Pied Wagtail...................2

BS

The Quiet was unbelievable

A walk around the usual fields tonight i.e. Mountain, Old Guy Rd, Roper Lane and Fleet Lane produced nothing.
The fields were void of gulls as well as the skies. One BH gull flew >W and 2 Swifts headed >S whilst a scattering of  Swallows skimmed the ground. The build up of Meadow Pipits had moved on as well as the Wheatear. I bumped into NK at lunch time and mentioned to him then how quiet the skies were and they never improved,  oh well, its back to the decorating till another day.
BS

Canadas on the move

Canadas at Withens Gap, Sunday

Shelf Moor garden.

1 hours gardening this evening at Shelf Moor saw 3 small skeins of  Canadas going over >W totalling 18. Possibly local birds but seemed like movers going by the height and speed. On Sunday a lot of the Fly Flatts Canadas had gone and there were several in fields at Withens Gap which looked like new birds in. Not sure if Canadas are regular up there but perhaps DJS can enlighten me on that one.

A few Swifts headed >S and there are still plenty Swallows about feeding.

A bit of a shock tonight when I stuck my hand under the rhubarb and out popped the fellow above in the photo. If you think frogs can jump you should have seen me!!!

BS

Checking the Gulls

A search for the gull flock tonight found them in new mown fields at the bottom of Perseverance Rd though Common Gull numbers were down on last night meaning they had already moved off to the roost or the flock was split with birds in another location.

Common Gull.............................13

BH Gull......................................87

LBB Gull...................................5

1 possible Herring gull or very pale mantled LBB, no scope tonight.

1 Dark mantled LBB flew over towards TMR.

BS