Quiet walk

Sunshine but cold today made for a brisk walk around the village perimeter.A small flock of Long tailed tits(5),1 Grey wag in the horse manure fileld ,34 Fieldfare went west,2 Chaffinch ,a few BHGulls and Commons heading n/w and a quick view of 62 lapwing up on Shelf moor........

More Sparrowhawk carnage

 

Young female Sparrowhawk is getting well into the swing of things,with another 2 Feral Pigeons in my garden alone this week.(pic above)
  A Dipper at ringstone was only  my third for the site and a flock of 21 Twite on the side of the road in a small quarry on the way to Blackstone Edge was a real bonus.
  Its been a strange week as there seems to have been a  complete clear out of Redwings,Fieldfares and Waxwings and no vis at all.
 The Nordic type Jackdaw was seen on Wednesday onwards and the Herring Gull at Brods has returned for its 3rd winter.

Shelf moor and sainsburys Yeasterday

                                   Candle snuff Fungus

Quick look at shelf moor area today saw 187 Common Gulls,25 Lapwing.4 Mistle Thrush,6 blackbirds,20 Starling,,6 Redwing and 12 Fieldfare,down in Northowram 37 Black Headed Gull.7 Heralds in Bare Head Tunnel are well worth a look and 1 Little Owl near here....Waxwing yeasterday in Brighouse

Great morning

A good morning for late autumn vis started slowly ,then picked up around 9ish all species going its own way.
1 Cormorant west
917 Woodpigeon s/w 22 north
148 Starling west
5 Herring Gull west
96 Redwing nn/east
212 Fieldfare s/w

Northowram to Shelf

Cheers Darrell

White - Tailed Starling

A heart stopping moment at shelf moor today,as I was counting the Starlings(311) a white tail resembeling one of the rare wheatears flipped across my bins..............only to reveal a White tailed Starling never seen one with a pure white tail before...40 lapwing,12 common Gull and one BHGull on a pretty grim day.Flushed a Woodcock from the field and 13 Stock Doves were the first group of the winter ....

Classic Woodpigeon

Early November clear blue skies and light ssw or wnw and its mass Woodpigeon moves s/w or ssw.In the last 3 days 4500 have passed over in the amazing shapes these large flocks make shimmering across the sky.The classic long cigar, tight tennis ball and long tail streamers were all observed today as numbers soared from a few early doorsto a few groups of 500 +.Lets hope it continues but the weather looks like it may put a dampner on the job,,

Sparrowhawk frenzy

had plenty of sightings of Sparrowhawks over the last few weeks with the adult male and female putting in many attacks on next doors pigeons and Collard doves.I have only seen the young male once since last month but the young female is a monster.
  I have seen it hit at least 2 pigeons over the weekend and fail to kill.Yesterday Ann from next door came running round saying there was a pool of blood in her garden and there was a dead bird in the tree.Sure enough a beheaded pigeon was hanging upside down dripping blood all over her nice new flaggs.Apparantly the Sparrowhawk had got the pigeon stuck on its foot and could not get it off until it flew headlong into the tree and this freed it from its talons.It returned 3 hours later and took the beheaded carcass off for another feed.
 Today it was in my garden with a very large feral pigeon pinned to the lawn taking large bits of feathers out of its breast,suddenly the pigeon broke free and both birds flew off and hit the car feathers flying in all directions.The sprk chased the pigeon under the car running along the path.The pigeon nipped round the front wheel and escaped.i saw the sprwk hunting high over the cricket pitch a bit later so it was still hungry......