Saturday, March 26, 2005

Watchpoint 26-03-2005

Members only watchpoint 26-03-2005
Saturday 26th March 2005
0755 - 1045hr.
Weather and Sky:

Firstly since my message yesterday about cutting down the length of my reports, I have since received two requests for me to continue to include the weather details. So here they are.

A deteriorating morning, both initially and later with initially mostly clear skies soon overdrawing along with cloudbase and visibility reducing. Misty at first, followed by substantial fog banks and fall in temperature after 1000hr. Wind: initially NNE F2 @ 0630, NE F3 by 0850, becoming F4 by 1030hr. Temp: initially 8 dp 7 @ 0630, 9 (7deg C @ wp)dp 8 by 0800, 8 dp 8 @ 1000hr, with temperature quickly dropping 2.5deg after envelopment by fog. Precipitation: some very light drizzle, but mainly absent. Visibility: initially 10km NW max (Keighley Moor) and 5.5km E max (Wilsden), reducing gradually until 1000hr when approach of tremendous rolling fog bank from the north-east further reduced and following envelopment allowed only c300m and remaining similar for the rest of the visit. Cloud: initially st fractus 4ok, quickly increasing low stratus 9ok with base initially c1450asl to the west, gradually reducing through morning with continuous block over the western hills and Pennine ridge and then as described in visibility above. Gloomy brightness visible below cloudbase around horizon from NW~N~ NE~ E~SE. Pressure: falling gradually over night to give 1011 by 0630 and 1010 by 1100hr.


Here, an almost birdless morning with dark, quiet and empty skies. Most unusual feature being not a gull of any sort to be seen throughout. In relation to what Brian was getting over the hill mips were here very thin on the ground with no longer range movements in the sky that could be seen either. No congregations of mipits at all were noted at the usual places en-route to the watchpoint. A large (for here) group of c120 Golden Plover, disturbed from the in-bye, circled broadly to almost cloud base height (much higher to the east) and eventually made off high the north-east. A group of 6 distant Siskin went NE. Again, several Herons were seen, most likely commuting to and from Brians froggeries or similar (if there is such a word?).

Moving Birds:
Golden Plover c120 > NE
Lapwing 15 > N
alba 6 > N
Sky Lark 2 > NW
Reed Bunting 1 > N
Meadow Pipit 10 > Northish
Chaffinch 2 > W
Siskin 6 > NE

Other:
Dunlin 1+
Golden Plover
Redshank
Snipe
Curlew
Oystercatcher.
Willow Warbler calls from wood.

Dave.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Large numbers of Golden Plover on Sandwith Moor last few days Dave, I estimated at around 3K and yesterady managed to get a photo of a flock of about two thirds in flight and overlaid a grid on the image to do a count result: 1860 so nto to far out.

March 27, 2005 10:23 am  

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home