Oxenhope... magical mipit skies! 04-04-2010

Magical mipit Skies! (c) 2010


Leeds City Centre... ideallic "seeing" conditions to latch onto the vis! (c) 2010


First Sun on the Hill... rain storm to the west! (c) 2010

The other end of the Rainbow!... (c) 2010

Lessers passing through.... but tailing off! (c) 2010

Ravens revenge!... (c) 2010

Raven moving off North... OOF montage (c)

WNW F3 rising F4, 3degC, 20 - 100km, 6/8 - 2/8 - 8/8, rain storms to west, QNH 1006 rising.

0640 - 1115hr

A tremendous morning early doors but soon falling off into sterilality.... the conditions initially were just right for catching mipits on the move whilst looking out east over the flat lands of Yorkshire... layer after layer of northward moving mips at increasing distances were apparent in the first hour through the haze.. the close ones were obvious but it needed the scope towards the just risen sun and eastern skyline to catch the ones that were far out in silhouette... just like autumn but going the wrong way. A brilliant sunrise through a reducing strip of open sky was all that it needed to backlight the sky. Overhead and to the west it was terrible with dark skies and approaching rain and biteingly cold in the increasing WNW wind... rainbows were prolonged and complete and my back was saturated by lashing rain. The first 20 minutes was the best with 184 mips through before 0700hr with the biggest flock being 41 strong. As the morning progressed their flight level dropped and essentially they were just skipping over the in-byes.... thus most difficult to see! Otherwise a Merlin dashed N, batting away at 0820hr, not unusual on good mipit days and left high N out over Airedale as far as the scope could see. A Raven close in initially, also went N... chivied on by a pair of C Crows. Unusually the large gulls started off well probably due to the better conditions out to the south east but soon tailed off as the skies darkened and rain lashed down.. the worst of which never seemed to reach us here.... so we were lucky!

Mipit Breakdown:

0640 - 0700hr 184, 0700 - 0740hr 103, 0740 - 0800hr 23, 0800 - 0900hr 31, 0900 - 1000hr 26, 1000 - 1100hr 6.

Moving Birds:

Meadow Pipit 385 > N

Starling 72 > E and NE

Fieldfare 76 > E

alba wagtail 2 > N

Oystercatcher 4 > NW

LBB Gull 37 > NW

Herring Gull 1 > NW

Merlin 1 > N

Redpoll 1 > N

Golden Plover 2 > NW

BH Gull 2 > NW

Raven 1 > N

Dave