Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Watchpoint 22-11-2005

Members only watchpoint 22-11-2005
Tuesday 22nd November 2005
0750 – 1000hr (DCB)
Weather and Sky:
A cold, damp, foggy, unimproving anticyclonic morning with rise of both temperature and pressure overnight. Ground still frosted. Wind: initially W F1 @ 0615, becoming S F1 by 0830 (calm to light and variable at times) and SSE F 1 by 1000hr. Temp: rise over night from below freezing and frost, to –0 by 0615 and +2 in lower areas by 0815. At the watchpoint temperature falling during the early part of the watch, bottoming out at 0.5degC at 0915hr and then rising. Ground remaining hard frosted throughout. Precipitation: dry fog as fogs go, with very little deposited moisture. Visibility: 60m min, 150m max. Deep and deathly silent fog with no vertical visibility at all. Cloud: assumed fog stratus. Pressure: rising significantly since c0300hr with QNH 1037hpa by 0615hr and 1038 by 0900hr.

Weather this morning a very poor match to the local forecast of persistent fog in the bottoms combined with crystal clear cold conditions in the hills – almost ideal for the vis, but it just turned out awful with dense, almost freezing fog all over. Quite possibly the rising temperatures were the cause of the problem. Red Grouse were the birds of the day – seeming (heard but not seen) very active and exceptionally noisy. The only moving birds were three albas sounding to be going south through the fog and a couple of Redwing contacts overhead, again well above the limit of visibility. With the exception of these and Black headed Gulls still on the water, no other birds were seen or heard, even in the wood! A terrible morning.

Moving birds:
Redwing 2
Alba 3 > S

See:
http://www.bradfordbirding.org/VIS-MIG/vis-mig1.html
and select "Latest Reports" for weather and sky photographs and other local reports.

See how we compare with some of the best of the European migration counting posts. See: trektellen.nl for day overviews, species graphs, day records, monthly site effort index and observation time statistics:
http://www.trektellen.nl/trektelling.asp?telpost=196&land=5&site=0&taal=2

Dave.

The sky this morning - dense fog - Tuesday 22nd November 2005 (c) Posted by Picasa