Monday, 22 June 2015

Bradshaw Soil Hill Ogden circular

enjoyed a trip over Soil Hill and a tour around Ogden Woods and the reservoir today.
The weather was a bit unkind with regular showers, a breeze and a smidgen of the big yellow ball.
It felt warmer today - so maybe summer is here!

10:50 Soil Hill

I dropped some nyger seed on the path.
On the way up 2 Linnet were on Ingham Lane.
Skylark was busy scooting about (presumably feeding young)with the usual crowd of Meadow Pipits.

A couple of Pheasants were seen, one made me jump, landing on the wall within a foot of me.

A Heron came over as I walked the northern contour path, took one look at my fearsome physique and decided to leave.
A LBBG > N.

10:50 Ned Hill Track.

Looking down to Ned Hill Track from the summit I had the amusing sight of a Male Pheasant running, head down, at Mo Farrah speed for 50 yds before disappearing into a field, I think it decided to run instead of fly because of the heavy shower( not a bad plan if you are a Pheasant especially in August).
Just a couple of Goldfinch, a couple of Swallow and another calling Pheasant on Coal Lane.

11:30 Ogden

I had a good look around the water and then had a stroll up to the devils tooth area.
4 Willow Warbler, 4 Chiffchaff, 2 Swift, 12 Canada Geese, 1 Swallow, pr. Great Crested Grebe, Heron.
Flitting about very high in some conifers there were 4 small birds that I thought might be Siskin at first but I later decided that they were Coal Tit or even Goldcrest but even this is a guess!!
A few Meadow Pipit and Skylark and a  distant Curlew and a Golden Plover were beyond the woods.
The woods seemed to be full of Wren today - a lovely bird to see.

On the way home a Kestrel was on the prowl high above Moorlands Pub.


Not a bad day out and about.



Pheasant (& me) in a flap


Hey up! another drenching


One of several Soil Hill optical illusions - Wood Deer














4 awful photos of 'birds' follow:-

















5 comments:

  1. Glad you had a good day out John, I love them optical illusions haha I have them all the time, I blame it on all the acid tabs in the past, I've seen all sorts of birds and animals which turn out to be just pieces of wood, I'm like a advert for specsavers.

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  2. Nice Goldie shot John.
    We,ve all had the false alarms, my favourite is the bin bag.
    A Twitcher once reported a Nighthawk in a field on the Scillys which drew around 500 birders from miles around inc Lee Evans . The bird turned out to be a cow pat, the reporter quietly disappeared and was never identified.

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  3. Cheers Dave - missing your blogs - time you retired.

    Brilliant story Bri.
    That could well be me, sometime in the future.
    John

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  4. I remember an ex landlady at the Royal Oak pub, Ambler Thorn going to the races and shouting loudly for her horse "Shy Talk" untill she realised that people were looking at her strangely!
    John

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  5. haha like that one John, my mate had a new born and his last name was Binns, I said what have you called her , he said Carrie, I laughed my head off he then clicked on and laughed as well, True story. Top lad but his name choices are not the best.

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