Tuesday, July 05, 2011

Fly Flatts




I got a nice surprise this morning up here with this flock of 27 Common Scoters (1 female in the flock and the 26 males were stunning)although they were difficult to count with the choppy water and bobbing up and down in such a tight flock. Strange how these birds often turn up over the Pennines in mid-summer.

2 Yellow-legged Gulls were also present with 11 Lesser Black-backed Gulls but they left >SE at 11.30 before I could get some photos. 1 adult and 1 sub-adult - looks like the same birds as Nick D and BS had in the last few days.

Other birds inluded usual sp. + Common Sandpipers, Dunlin, 6 Lapwings, but no Reshank!
8 Twite including one colour ringed bird at the feeding station and 2 juv Wheatears still around by the overflow.
The Great Crested Grebe had gone from yesterday.

5 comments:

Jeff Cox said...

Nice one Dave. I didn't manage to get up there today as I would have liked because I haven't seen Scoters in Calderdale yet. May try tomorrow and see if they're still about, but I doubt it as they don't seem to hang around inland waters very long.

David Sutcliffe said...

Not had any further news from anyone today Jeff.

David Sutcliffe said...

Still present at 17.46 according to BirdGuides.

Brian Sumner . said...

An excellent find there Dave, shows that you never know whats around the corner, except in my case and its usually another car to mend when I should be looking at Scoters!
Had word from DCB Sunday that all Redshank had left his site also.

sedrake said...

My recollection is there was a similar flock on Ogden Water in the first week of July last year. Perhaps this part of the world is on their migration path.