Oxenhope.... 2012-10-14

Snaps to follow when enough time to upload!

Oxenhope, Bradford (W Yorks, England)
Sunday 14 October 2012 Counting period: 7:10-14:30
Weather: wind West0, cloud-cover 1/8, visibility 100000m, temperature 0 ℃, Very Hard FROST, becoming WNW F1/2 0ok then NW F2 2ok then N F3 4ok, 40000 then 100000m, 9degC, QNH 1002/1003 steady
Observers: Dave Barker, Howard Creber, (Chris King, Mark Doveston, briefly)

Moving Birds:
Cormorant - 3
Herring Gull 2 -
Carrion Crow 1 -
Whooper Swan * 4 -
Woodpigeon 731 -
Starling 2+ 26
Pink-footed Goose * 1030 -
Collared Dove 5 + 2
Chaffinch 16 -
Sparrowhawk 4 -
Meadow Pipit 98 -
finch sp. 3 -
Common Buzzard 3 -
alba wagtail sp. 1 -
Greenfinch 30 -
Merlin 2 -
Song Thrush - 1
Goldfinch 5 -
Peregrine 1 -
Redwing 454 -
Siskin 6 -
Lapwing - 85
Mistle Thrush - 3
Linnet 9 -
Black-headed Gull 233 -
Turdus sp. 33 -
Lesser Redpoll 3 -
Common Gull 19 -
Magpie 1 -
Crossbill - 4
Lesser Black-backed Gull 165 -
Jackdaw - 84
Reed Bunting - 3

Totals: 3072 individuals, 33 species, 7:20 hours

Comments: Initially a crisp mist free morning with open sky except for a huge and dramatic cunim capilatus out to the east. Inversion mist soon forming however over the tops and rolling over from Lancashire. Redwings poor with this arrival stopped, just small flocks and fews moving randomly in whatever direction. Interestingly Jays absent and Starings almost absentt today. Trans-Pennine Pinks, the birds of the day were penomenal with a total of twelve skeins east recorded (excluding a high one that we could just hear but not see), many with similtaneous passage. First advice from GH, (S of Skipton), somewhat W and N of us of a large skein coming E down Airedale. Almost immediately we picked up a large skein also E over the watershed, then a conversation with BS at Fly, just to our south, who as we warned him, had become badly fogged in one of the rolls... just then i noted another massive skein lumbering low over the moor to our SW going to come shortly right over BS beneath the fog, they came but all he could get was the tremendous din, just over his head, almost immediately another then another and another skein came, same track and level, to us a tremendous sight, to him devastating...... as they got over the eastern pennine upslope, as frequently, obvious lift came into play and they took off, lifting like "jumbo's" into the upper sky and away mega high east..... After being woken during the night by a noisy skein of Whoopers, via the listening station, and passing overhead, another small skein, this time low and below our line of vision over the black moor going SSE after lunch was not unexpected. Lost from view for a while, they eventually came out as they crossed towards the Ring-O-Bells and away in the same direction. We should really have counted the gulls yesterday morning as today, virtually nothing and an obvious influx yesterday. If no pinks or whoopers, it would have been a very dreary morning!

Dave