Birdlife Malta Petition

Please check out the new video Birdlife Malta have posted on their website - its on the home page - then you wiill see why it is SO important that everyone signs the petiton against illegal hunting. Please add your name to the cause! http://www.birdlifemalta.org/

Upper Calder Valley Reservoirs and Dams

A good bright, dry and sunny (but chilly) day for a walk so...

Lee Dam
14 Goosanders - the most I've seen here. 6 male and 8 female.
Grey Heron
2 Mallards
Moorhen
2 Canada Geese
I bet none of these are here on Sunday when the postponed New Year Swim takes place!
Flock of about 60 Starlings with 9 Fieldfares keeping them company in the field above the Dam.
Gaddings Dam
Now 90% free of ice and a pair of Goldeneye there this morning, 1 male and 1 female
Warland Res
About 90% iced over and no birds visible
Light Hazzles Res
100% ice and no birds about
White Holme Res
80-90% ice and no birds to be seen
Blackstone Edge Res
Looked to be almost fully iced over still but didn't walk over to the NE corner to check - too cold.
Not even a Mipit to get excited about.
Higher Chelburn Res
4 Goosanders (1 male and 3 female) but outside our recording area.

47 mallards, a Grey Heron and 31 Canada Geese on the Rochdale Canal
Longfield Dam
2 Goldeneye, 1 male and 1 female. Probably the same pair I saw 5 hours earlier at Gaddings.
3 Lapwings
2 Mallards
16 Canada Geese in the field

Blake Dean/Walshaw Dean/Lower Gorple

10 Bullfinch together feeding in the tops of birch and oak at Blake Dean this afternoon
1 Treecreeper and 1 Coal Tit also present

Lower Gorple
1 adult Herring Gull >W
1 Great Spotted Woodpecker on the lodge feeders

Savile Park

Wainhouse Tower
1 adult male Peregrine near the top of the tower this morning

Scarr Bottom (from Albert Promenade)
1 Nuthatch
1 Great Spotted Woodpecker

New Mill Dam, Tod

2M & 3F Gooseander

2007/80 Bird Report

Nick Dawtrey has asked me to post that he has taken a further (very) small supply of reports to Woodlesford Newsagents at Pellon. There are very few copies of this report left so if anyone wants one please act fast. There may still be copies avaliable at the Tourist Info Centre at Todmorden

Ogden

Tawny Owl, male singing at Stodfold (just below the golf course) mid afternoon.
70 Rooks feeding in the fields near Cold Edge Road along with a few Jackdaws and Carrion Crows
Golf Course and Ogden res'r very quiet birdwise today with just 1 flyover Siskin

c300 mixed B H Gulls and Common Gulls at mid-afternoon roost at Mixenden Res'r

Ringby Lane (Swales Moor) and Ogden

WOW it was cold up there this afternoon!!
On the top at Ringby Lane (manure field)
4 Skylark
1 male Reed Bunting
1 Meadow Pipit
2 Pied wagtails
4 Herring Gull >S
usual corvids

Ploughcroft
7 Fieldfares
12 Greenfinch
1 Stock Dove

Ogden (res'r now about 40% open water)
1 Little Owl on the edge of Back Lane plantation
c40 Fieldfares and c20 Starlings on Syke Lane

Winter Thrushes

I've just uploaded a litle winter video piece that can be found here-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgRmat6glLw
A few local winter landscapes, and fieldfares and redwings gorging the last of the cotoneaster berries. Enjoy.
If you check out the "favorites" section of my channel, there is some Fieldfare footage shot by Birding Rob that is absolutely stunning. It puts my stuff to shame.
Amazing what difference a £6000 lens makes. Me, jealous?? Too right!

Ovenden

50 Pink Footed Geese reported this morning heading south at 11.30 am

Castle Carr Road

2 Moorhens were unexpected at this site this afternoon!
1 Kestrel
c50 Jackdaws
35 Rooks
18 Starlings

No Little Owls in the usual haunts - wonder if they are one of the casualties in this recent cold weather spell ? - anyone else had any?

Lesser Pecker

Came in tonight to find an answerphone message from Geoff Smith asking me to post a recent sighting of Lesser Spotted Woodpecker on here. The bird has been seen twice over the weekend, on both occasions around a pylon behind the last house on Elland Park Road before you get to the wood. If anyone needs further details please contact me by e mail and I'll pass your request to Geoff.

Dipper

Another Dipper sighting in Todmorden town centre today, feeding busily on the concrete channel of the Calder by Stansfield Road. My wife also disturbed a Grey Wagtail virtually on our front doorstep this afternoon. When I go on my occasional foreign trips with birders largely from the south of England, I'm sure they think I'm making up these urban sightings of these species!

Scammonden and Ringstone Res'rs

Had a quick check this morning.
Scammonden - from the dam wall end - nothing other than a few BH and Common Gulls on the water and 1 Goldcrest and 1 Coal Tit on the walk down to the embankment

Ringstone - 29 Lapwings on the ice and a few Black-headed and Common Gulls on the open water

activity

lots of bird activity along canal today - of the courtship kind
gs woodpecker drumming, mistle thrush singing, blue tit wing quivering, jackdaw 'bat' flights

looks like theyre starting early....

Elland GP and Sunny Vale

Ski-lake and canal and river. Struggled to find much this morning in the heavy rain (fishing ponds still frozen over but the ski-lake mostly ice free)
5 Tufted Duck
1 G C Grebe
2 Little Grebe
c25 Goosander (river and ski-lake)
7 Cormorants on the pylon behind the Avocet building
1 Kingfisher
1 Dipper
1 male Sparrowhawk

Sunny Vale - open water
2 Goosander

Ogden

99.9% of the res'r still frozen over!
c20 Siskin - all feeding in the top of larch trees on the west side of the res'r
c4 Great Spotted Woodpeckers
1 Green Woodpecker
1 Canada Goose, 1 Barnacle Goose and c60 Mallard on the ice
2 Goldcrest

Back Lane
c70 Fieldfares
1 female Sparrowhawk hunting at dusk
30+ Magpies and c12 Stock Doves roosting
c60 Rooks heading towards roost site, Bradford area
4 large gulls heading south over Soil Hill
c300 mixed B H Gulls and Common Gulls heading south at dusk (wonder if Thornton Moor is also frozen over)

Halifax

11 Siskin this morning feeding in a large Silver Birch in Clarence Street near the bottom of Gibbet Street
Also 1 Lapwing over >W

ID comments please.

Down at EGP when at 1415 I glanced left to see a large bird of prey being harassed by a Crow above Park Wood/West Lane Southowram area. Managed to get this one shot before it dropped below my tree line,it could have dropped into the wood,any ideas as my first thought was Buzzard but it looked very heavy and thick set. Ski Lake had 1 Pochard, 6 Tufted, 12 Goosanmder(9M 3F) and 1 juv Gt Crested Grebe.

Brighouse Garden/Brookfoot/EGP

Decided to spend the morning in my shack and suprised that the first to appear was a male Blackcap, the light was shocking so managed some poor shots,and it was still feeding at dusk. Ski Lake this afternoon held 4 Pochard(2M2F), 9Goosanders(6M3F), 4 Tufted, 1 Goldeneye(M), 1 Grey Heron. The pylon at the back of Avocet Works had 11 Cormorant.