Oxenhope.... early DEARTH! 25-10-2009
Just an illusion... it was nothing like this suggests.... Sunrise over the North Sea and Lincolnshire.. (c) 2009
Nothing like this either!! (c) 2009
Sunrise in context!!... even this is misleading (c) 2009
Sheeting rain squalls and driving drizzle! lets be realistic... (c) 2009
Oxenhope, Bradford (W Yorks, England)
Sunday 25 October 2009
Counting period: 6:45-11:30
Weather: WSW F5/6 moderating F4, 11degC, 100km+ reducing 3000m in rain, 8/8 deep stratus breaking stratocumulus, QNH 1001 rising 1003
Observers: Dave Barker
Moving Birds:
Cormorant 1 -
Meadow Pipit 1 -
Whooper Swan 11 -
Fieldfare 110 -
Pink-footed Goose - 74
Redwing 1 -
Black-headed Gull 37 -
Rook 3 -
Common Gull 8 -
Starling - 10
Lesser Black-backed Gull 7 -
Chaffinch - 1
Totals: 264 individuals, 12 species, 4:45 hours
Comments: GREENWICH MEAN TIME STARTS TODAY....Started off at Sentry but moved up after 0930. A brilliant sunrise over the North Sea and Lincolnshire from up here in the Pennines but very brief as sky was 8ok. Very soon numerous rain squalls set in advancing from the WSW. Initially there was a total dearth of moving birds even before the squalls with the first and only squadron of Starlings passing NNW not until 0903. A total of three Rooks passed west, a good record for here! Nothing much happened then until 1046 when a skein of 11 Whoopers unseen on approach came in very low over the N end during a sheeting rain squall... nearly chopping my head off!!...a terrific surprise. I thought they were going to come down but on they went low over the water and off out to the SSE... Immediately after at 1048 in the same rain squall a broken skein of very low pinks went through NW (going the other way) at eye height just at / above tree top level... again a total out of context surprise and unseen on approach. I hung around for another 45mins thinking there might be more but absolutely nothing came. Except for these two exceptional highlights, worth every minute of waiting it was a really horrible morning.
Dave Barker
posted by Dave Barker at
10/25/2009 01:59:00 pm
4 Comments:
Glad you got lucky with the Whoopers also.
Hi Brian,
According to trek they are still on the move down the Scottish west coast today... so there should be a few more to come!
Dave
The remoteness of your location is really great! Here in South London the migrants' calls can sometimes be drowned out by the noise of background traffic, planes, dogs etc etc. And although I'm happy to have had some good counts this month of Chaffinches, thrushes, Starlings, Skylarks and Bramblings, I am very envious of your Whooper flock!
Yes Joe, we are very lucky here. You can soon get remote, yet be not too far from suburbia. The Whoopers yesterday (25th) I will remember for the rest of my life! Another skein grounded in to a nearby water on the 24th in foul weather, of which there are some snaps just a bit further back on my blog. In autumn we usually get a few small skeins, nearly always going SE or SSE. In spring the skeins are always much bigger going back the other way! The whoopers and especially the pinks we get here on multiple skein winter days, are in my opinion the very essence of Visible Migration!
Dave
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