Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Woodcock at Elland Gravel Pits

Flushed a Woodcock at 14:20 today whilst walking along the footpath/mudbath between the River Calder and the first sunken pit as you walk in a westerly direction from Brookfoot Lock. I cannot claim full responsibility for this as I think a very loud shotgun blast from the direction of the fishing lake a few minutes earlier probably had more to do with it, although a Cleckheaton birder also flushed a Woodcock (possibly same bird?) 45 minutes later from the same place.

Other birds along the river were:
1 Little Grebe
1 Cormorant (juvenile)
2 Goosander
1 Grey Wagtail
1 Dipper (first time here for me this year)

Unfortunately no sign of LSW although the weather conditions probably didn't help!

PS Had loads of trouble trying to post tonight (had to switch to new account), but still taken me over an hour to post and like Nick I think it has been more luck than good judgement. I am not confident I will be able to post without problems next time, we shall see!

3 comments:

David Tattersley said...

Forgot to mention that the Cleckheaton birder also saw a Red Deer in the vicinity of the Woodcock

Nick Carter said...

Red? are you sure he didn't mean Roe?

David Tattersley said...

He definitely said red and as he towered above me (most people do) I wasn't going to contradict the gent and to be honest I was more interested in getting good views of the dipper which he had just seen!