Out and About

A very windy day with drizzle this morning, better this afternoon.

I had a walk up to the Raggalds in the drizzle mid-morning while Abi got her act together.

After lunch I had a short garden sky watch and late afternoon I had a walk along the canal / river at Brookfoot NR while Sue dropped Abi home at Heckmondwike, picking me up again shortly afterwards on her way home.

A look at a very quiet ski-lake, very dry reed bed area and a stroll along the river path was about it today.

Birds:-

Raggalds walk and Garden:

4 Swift, Pheasant, Meadow Pipit, 2 Goldfinch, 2 Black Headed Gull, 6+ Lesser Black-backed Gull passing by in ones.

6+ Swallow, 2 Greenfinch, Dunnock.

A Buzzard was enjoying the breeze as it passed very high before plummeting down.

A very large Gull , very high,  'could' be a Great Black Backed but I'm not clever enough to ID it from the photo!!

Brookfoot Area:

Good numbers of Swifts 'all over the shop' near Avocet works were hard to estimate.

A conservative guess was 30 or so.

A few Swallow and Sand Martins in among but I found identifying them quite difficult 

with the Swifts zooming through!! Don't think I saw a House Martin.

Singing Chiffchaffs, Canada Geese with Goslings.

Moorhen, Mallard, 2 Black Headed Gull.

Heron, Stock Dove, Woodpigeon.

Ski-Lake nearly bereft of birds!

A Possible Reed Warbler heard from the very dry reed beds but it only called once from distance.

A very careful scan of the rivers edge, with the water very low, failed to bring much reward.