Oxenhope 31-10-2008

Snow Showers Forming Over Airedale (c) HC 2008

Snow Arriving !! (c) HC 2008

0700 - 1100hr HC
N F4, 0 degC, 65km, 4/8 - 8/8, Snow Showers, QNH 1010 rising.

Quite a bright morning, punctuated by several snow showers, causing retreat to the hide. N F4. Good visibility out to snow clad 3 Peaks and Drax to the east. Not a spectacular morning by any means - some thrush and Starling movement. Despite constant checking of the sky, where no cloud cover permitted, no high thrush groups seen.

Have just read Martyn`s Caldene Fields report for today - another really great vis-mig watch! Mine just didn`t compare - I believe Martyn`s birds carried on low and kept to the valleys - I am sure they were avoiding today`s northerly blast and snow showers at 1250ft asl, Oxenhope like the plague. I have a feeling some may well have gone thro` via the Calderdale valleys as some of my observations were of Starlings and Thrushes coming off the Ovenden Moor/ Fly Flatts area low behind the "bumps" and down into the Worth Valley.

Birds seen :-

Starling - 337 NW in 21 groups
Alba Wag - 3 S
Redwing - 15 NW (some in Fieldfare flocks)
Fieldfare - 352 NW in 8 flocks (largest 134 birds)
Wood Pigeon - 91 SW in 9 flocks
Greenfinch - 5 SE
Goldfinch - 2 SE
Chaffinch - 1 SE
Skylark - 1 E

Other birds :-

Cormorant (probably local)
Green Woodpecker in wood.
Heron over res east

Howard Creber

Rich Autumn Colours From The Hide and Snow on The Three Peaks (c) HC 2008