Sunday, October 03, 2010

Oxenhope... jackdaws! 03-10-2010


Pre Sunrise rapidly shutting down!.... misting rain advancing... (c) 2010


Fractus rapidly on the build!.... (c) 2010

Oxenhope, Bradford (W Yorks, England)
Sunday 3 October 2010
Counting period: 7:00-8:15
Weather: SE F2, 9degC, 50km reducing 50m, 7/8 1ncreasing 9/8, rain setting in, QNH 994 falling
Observers: Dave Barker, Howard Creber

Moving birds:
Meadow Pipit 20 -
Jackdaw 108 -
Grey Wagtail 1 -
Chaffinch 9 -
alba wagtail sp. 1 -

Totals: 139 individuals, 5 species, 1:15 hours

Comments: Closed sky overnight with variable mist with wind very light but in a bad south easterly quarter. QNH falling quickly throughout. Weather forecast a disaster this morning, unusually wrong in both track and timing, with the extent of the rain front leading edge being very significantly further west / north and and possibly up to two hours sooner! All the way to the watchpoint I was fighting the pre sunrise, glorious when departing from home but by the time arriving at the watchpoint deep fog stratus had formed rapidly out over the flat lands, shutting off the brilliance and the advance arrival of rain had commenced from the shelf of high nimbostratus overdrawing very quickly from the west. Clear for a while and thought we were ok but then we noted fractus was forming very quickly over the moor out to the west and no sooner had we looked at c0800hr than deep fog stratus was invading from the south together with increasing rain. Nevertheless we managed 75 minutes vis in the clear.... Jackdaws were the birds of the day, usually no traffic here, with the first real westward movement and the first three figure count of the season, very quickly upon us this year and very dramatic with unusually low flights in the advancing murk. Mips were going in fews but due to sheltering we only had a 180deg outlook today so birds over the back were nodoubt missed. Once again high Chaffs somewhere up there with three groups over but impossible to see, the count is a low estimate just to show prescence. Single albas and greys went through. As the fogs were enveloping and the rainfall radar as expected, gave no hope for essentially the rest of the day, against better principles we drew stumps early!

Dave and Howard

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