A fair old hike.

Bradshaw – Soil Hill – Ogden – Withens – Fly Flats and return via the same route.

9:00 am

With a decent weather forecast for this morning I decided to take a hike.

Birds were very thin on the ground and positively skeleton like in the air.

Bradshaw : Kestrel.

Soil Hill:

Windy - Just a quick pass over soil hill to put some birdseed down.

The Carrion Crows seemed to recognise me, soon the Snow Bunts will as well.

C20 Meadow Pipit, LBBG > NW.

Ogden:

Sparrowhawk, GCG, 2 Cormorant and usual gull species.

Track to Withens:

Possible 2 Skylark.

9 Turbines out of action.

Fly Flats:

A back bender of a SW wind up there.

Nothing at all on the water except a solitary BHG.

Three ducks took to the air from the waters edge, most probably Mallard.

Red Grouse – 1 seen and a few calls heard.

2 Carrion Crow, 1 Meadow Pipit! 

Kestrel.

I found a good spot, between walls and out of the wind, to have my sarnies before heading back.

After this Fly Flats trip I'll stop moaning about lack of bird life at Ogden 

On the return journey.

I was hoping for a different route from Fly Flats to Ogden but I cannot see one on the O.S. map.

Kestrel hunting over the golf course.

I just did a quick circuit of Ogden, I was feeling a bit weary by now -the strong wind seemed to have taken its toll.

The usual suspects on the water, plus Blue Tit, Great Tit, Chaffinch, Jay, 10 LTT and 3 Goldcrest seen on the circuit. (Bullfinch heard but not seen).

The Kestrel was still hunting on the Bradshaw hillside.

I enjoyed the hike but the lack of birdlife was disappointing.

Some snaps:-

Soil Hill from Withens Bridleway

Harlem Globetrotters training ground

Cold Edge Dams

Stodley Pike

Mallard?

At least Fly Flats wasn't completely deserted.

Mud glorious mud

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