Soil Hill – not my day

13:45

I dropped some assorted bird seed on the track – I’d heard that the crows were getting fed up with my Nyger seed diet.

The weather was very windy with intermittent showers and the ground is quite sodden in places (so maybe Jack Snipe will enjoy the conditions later in the year). 

The weather did improve after 30 minutes or so with the showers stopping for a while.

I did a full circuit of the hill and on the second circuit turned right at the top (North) end of the main track to double back through the longer grass and across the very top of the hill.

Here the only bird I saw (except gulls, crows and Magpies) made a very brief appearance, leaving the grass and flying ahead for 30 yds before landing again.

I did not get the bins on the bird but it looked like a Skylark to me (so it could have been a Lappet-faced Vulture).

I decided to try a short video as I walked towards where it landed.

The bird did flush again and I did capture it on the video!

Four seconds into the video it leaves the grass (in a line just to the left of the mast – look for a bluebottle) and flies to the right.

I cannot ID it from the video alas and a snapshot from the video using Windows live movie maker does not improve things.

Any comments on the video (other than “It’s time you took up fishing” or “wouldn’t a photography course be a good Christmas present for you”) would be appreciated.

I went down Ned Hill Track and past Bradshaw School and down again towards Oats Royd but bottled it and came home when a lot of dark clouds accompanied by some Native American Indians - Comanche’s  I think, came charging over the hill.

There were just the usual small gulls about mostly.

I lied about the Comanche earlier on.

They all actually had a big “E” on their  breechcloth so I guess they were Apache .

(I've just watched the video via my blog and it's really awful - It's actually not too bad on the laptop).

Brian:

(I've sent a copy of the video to your hot mail email address in case it's easier to see!!!)

Video of the year

Soil Hill Main Track very sodden now

Towards Mixenden Res.

Halifax - Wainhouse Tower 

The leading gull has caught a large "worm"

Gulls leaving the fields by Stony Royd Farm with an unid to right

The unid from earlier - I guess it's a crow.