Shelf Moor

                                           Several Common gull around

                                    B.H. gull with almost full hood

A terrible morning with heavy rain till midday then bright skies but a strong icy cold WNW>5. Late afternoon brought heavy hail and snow showers followed by an evening of heavy freezing.
A quick visit to Shelf Moor found the Lapwing flock reduced to 100+ with no Golden Plover present. A few winter thrushes were in the hawthorn field and large flocks of Starlings fed in the fields.
Weather permitting Fly Flatts in the morning and hopefully, if I get the family thing finished in good time, Crossbill searching at Ogden pm, Ive promised Nigel a photo of the 2 Barred which Im sure will still be around although me and Crossbills dont seem to get on well apart from fleeting glimpses of flyovers.
BS

Queensbury Today

A dull morning rapidly deteriorating by midday turning to low cloud, W>4 and heavy drizzle till present time.
The only birds of note today were 21 Fieldfare over at last light heading towards the old station to roost. All winter thrushes now seem to be grouping ready for the off and a cross over is building with daily reports of Curlew coming in.
Surely the Soil Hill Snow Bunts can,t hang around much longer before they head back to their native breeding ground. I think this is the first time we,ve ever held over wintering birds and even the Linnets have stuck it out, there must be something special about that hill.
Hopefully there,ll be a few eyes scouring Ogden this weekend for NKs 2 Barred Crossbill, when these rareties turn up they always seem to hang about a while.
BS

Redwings on the move

                 Heavy stuff at the garage feeders today

                                          Pics taken through glass.

A dull but clear morning with a cool NW>5 at Foxhill but judging by the wind noise from NKs phone when he called me from Ogden and Soil Hill it was much stronger higher up. Heavy drizzle and rain moved in by mid afternoon.
See Nigels Queensburybirder blog for exciting news.
Redwings were my bird of the day today with 3 seperate flocks over high >NE in mig mode with a 12, 18 and 21 totally 51 birds. This coincides with a flock picked up in Halifax , see J.Ws report on Calderbirds.
Nothing else to report apart from a suprise visit from 2 Woodpigeons to the garage feeders.
Just had a tot up and my life list for the garage is 61 sp.
BS

More signs of movement

                                                 The works Blackbird at the feeding station

                             Whetstone Gate masts on the horizon from Foxhill

                    A   R.L. Buzzard has been showing well here for a couple of weeks now.

A bright clear day till mid p.m. when the clouds gathered leading to a grey finish.
Just ready for getting out of bed this morning when Lynda, who has the window side said ," Theres a Stork flying over ".  Out of bed in a flash and to the window just in time to see a Heron off to the east. " Sorry says Lynda, I meant a Heron".  Its not good to fly out of bed at my age.
Anyway, as it happened 3 more Herons were seen during the day all >E or >SE and very high in moving mode.
As I got to work a tight flock of 5 Meadow Pipits came over >NE which is unusual to see Mipits returning as they usually just appear on the moors having come in low in small numbers following the rivers unlike the mass exodus of birds in the autumn.
Otherwise quiet but I see there was a report of a Curlew over Calderdale today, see Calderbirds, so its all starting to kick off now.
BS

Rushing spring along

A bit of a grey  miserable day with a cold N>4-5 although temperatures were up around 6 deg out of the wind.
Gull numbers were back down to normal today with 8 Commons and 7 Black Headed around the rugby pitch and Foxhill park.
A jolt from NK today reporting Curlews at Knotford Nook made me look back at my last years records for late February and into March to find I had my first of the year Curlew at Cold Edge Dams on the 27th Feb with just a single, and later in the day 37 coming in to roost at TMR.
After this day Curlews were arriving daily on the moor bringing back some life into the area.
By the second week of March Curlew, Oystercatcher and Redshank were  at Fly Flatts and on the 27th of March the first Wheatear and Little Ringed Plover arrived whilst a single Shoveler was on the water, a real mega tick for the area.
After this anything can happen with waders on the shore and Ospreys passing overhead and if the water level drops at Fly Flatts like last year we should have another cracking wader passage.
BS

The big thaw

                                    Flood conditions in the garage

                                           Bring on the Whoopers

                                     Small gulls congregating on the rugby field.

Before the weekend we were complaining at work about lack of water after 3 days of frozen pipes and this morning we were complaining about too much water with the big weekend thaw and a burst pipe.
The water must have been running all Sunday and when I opened up this morning the whole garage was awash with the ramp completely submerged in its well.
When I sent the ramp up it was like the raising of the Titanic.
With a quick pipe repair and about 300 buckets of water, 2 hours later it was business as usual apart from an aching back.
All pretty much quiet on the bird scene other than an influx of small gulls on the rugby field with 51 present at midday, mainly Black Headed and a small number of Commons.
Had it brought to my attention today by DJS that Birdguides were again reporting 12+ Snow Bunts on Soil Hill so consulted the site manager NK who had just returned from there reporting the usual 4 with linnets and Skylarks also present. See Nigels report on Queensburybirder.
BS

Views of Ogden from this morning

                                                        Reflections

                                            The feeding corner

Unfortunately no birding trip this afternoon due to having to look at venues for the second daughters wedding whilst Im still reeling from the first one. One of the best I liked had a clear view over Huddersfield moors for visible migration but Id better not let that influence me.
The views above of Ogden were taken from up above the top car park which will be an excellent watchpoint for vis mig this autumn looking right down the Calder Valley.
BS

Ogden on ice

                                                      Adult Cormorant

                                          Carrion Crow waiting for food

                                           BH gulls on ice

                                                    Juv Cormorant on its favourite perch.

A calm mild morning with a slight N>3 and a steady thaw with 80% of the reservoir clear though walking was treacherous with solid ice around the footpaths and even across the promenade. Only walked half of the reservoir path with the west bank impossible to stand on, especially with 3 dogs pulling you along.
A good number of Mallard on the water and a few small gulls but otherwise quite. Two Cormorant were present and a small number of Tits etc.
Herring gulls were moving well throughout with numbers increasing late morning with a flock of 28 over the Raggalds. The Raggalds flood was still froze over and birdless.

Mallard.............................172 with several uncounted at the north end.
BH Gull............................15
Common gull......................2
Cormorant.........................1 ad   1 juv
Kestrel..............................1
Herring Gull.......................83 >NE
+ usual sp
BS

Fieldfares on the move

                               A wintery Chapel Lane early a.m.

                                       Foxhill Park floods

A beautiful red ball sunrise which quickly turned yellow by the time I got in a position to photograph it and shortly after that it was blanked by cloud for the rest of the day leaving it dull and temperatures below freezing.
By late afternoon the wind ,as predicted, had turned to the >N and a slight thaw was apparent with the ice covered branches on the trees beginning to drip although the pavements were freezing over. A grit wagon has just gone down so thats a sign of warmer weather coming as they dont usually come out in the cold.
Just spent over 1 hour stripping and cleaning all the bird feeders, I hate that job but it has to be done if you dont want grass growing out of them, not to mention infected birds.

Active skies this morning with firstly 46 Woodpigeons heading >S probably out of a roost but an unusual sighting for over the garage for this time of year.
Secondly a flock of 38 Fieldfare came over very high in migration mode heading >NE so it looks like the first birds are on their way.
A small flock of 4 Mistle Thrush flew over >S but these could be the same locals that I had 2 weeks previous ?
Otherwise 3 LBB gulls headed >NW and several Common gulls squabbled over food.
BS

Birds in the snow

Blue Tit amongst the icicles

Blackie getting snowed on.

A timid Dunnock

Mother Blackbird getting snowed on.

Acrobatic Blue Tit

All House Sparrows, waiting for the Tree Sparrow

Rare for here, Coal Tit

All photos taken through a mucky garage window so excuse the quality.

Another poor day with steady snow all morning and all the ground like glass from last nights freezing rain.
A treacherous walk to work and almost made it till I ended up on my back down the high street just where all the cars were queueing for the traffic lights too, funny how you get up quicker than you go down then walk off as if nothing had happened.
The snow stopped by midday but the fog kept coming in not allowing the temperature to rise above zero and making the bird feeding station at the garage a busy place.
Suprising how aggresive Dunnocks are with 3 on the seed and not allowing anything else near until they,d finished, they were even seeing off Blackbirds and a Magpie.
At the seed were :-

2 Coal Tits
4 Blue Tits
11 House Sparrows
1pr Blackbirds
3 Dunnocks
1 Magpie.

Plenty BH and Common gulls in the sky.
BS

What a grey day

                                Female Blackbird at the works feeding station

                                                  Photos taken through glass.

A real miserable grey murky day with rain and drizzle which turned into freezing fog by late afternoon.
Everywhere was shot ice and everything was entombed in an icy coating.
Foxhill park was void of gulls at midday due to the ground being frozen meaning no chance of feeding.
On the up side we,re now well into the second week of February so things will soon improve.
BS

Birds at work

A common visitor, House Sparrow

Waste land by the garage

This small piece of waste land at the side of the M.O.T. station fetches several passerines with the help of some seed and fat balls.
A busy day here today with feeding :-
3 Blue Tits
1 Gt Tit
2 Coal Tits
3 Dunnocks
1 Robin
2 m Blackbirds
3 Collared Doves
8 House Sparrows
1 Wren
2 Greenfinch
Will have to get set up with some Nyger feeders to bring some new species, trouble is I can,t stop looking out of the window.

A dull morning today which brightened up early afternoon bringing clear blue skies and sunshine.
The temperature never rose above freezing today and dropped rapidly after dark.
No birds of note in the skies today.
BS

Up above the clouds, Queensbury today.

                                    Sunrise from Sourheads.

A bright clear morning as the sun rose up out of the valley mist. Queensbury for a change today was up above the clouds instead of in amongst them with bright blue skies leaving the grey mist down below in the valleys.
A lively morning with plenty movement  up to mid afternoon when the murky grey mist came up from below and engulfed the village in freezing fog which hung around until 1900hrs before clearing.
Several Blue and Gt Tits, Robin, Wren and Blackbirds were active around the garage area whilst BH and Common gulls squabbled and chased each other around after food.
Birds moving were :-
6 Herring gulls............>NE
17 LBBs...................>NW
3 Mallard..................>E
2 Mistle Thrush........>S ..   Suspect these as being locals.
5 Lapwing...............>N
BS

Snowy Ogden from yesterday

Just a few snow scenes from yesterdays Ogden trip.
A lovely spring like day today with warm sunshine thawing a lot of the snow until last light when a heavy freeze started.
Despite the blue skies nothing reportable was seen and the Herring gull movement seemed to miss the village or I missed the birds.
Four Mistle Thrushes went over >S this morning but these were possibly locals, otherwise it was a day of small gulls and the usual resident sp.