no waxings today

walked a fair few miles this morning but no sign of any waxwings,infact i saw very little apart from 28 redwings flying over gibbet street.

no birdy pics today just some of this wonderful town called Halifax....................sorry

young birders

many years ago i was a kid lister and only in the last few years i lost my title of 'youngest birder in halifax' which i thought was a shame seeing as though im 38!!

the trouble with being a kid lister is no one believes anything thing you find! as i used to find to their loss.though the bradford group despite at the time trying to incorporate most of the british isles into their recording area, did never doubt my sightings, i used to ring tony gough my sightings from elland gp, and never once did i get a sceptical comment off him, though after finding the grey headed wagtail at elland in 1990 which i admit i phoned out as a blue headed wagtail! though in my defence i did only see it in flight!

Before i was 18 i had done some fairly decent birding finding good birds eg the grey headed wagtail,little gull,little tern and breeding lesser spotted woodpeckers locally along with a laughing gull at hipperholme which got rejected by the BBRC, id found my own yellow browed warbler at spurn,id twitched the double crested cormorant at billingham and the snowy owl at wainfleet,visited fair isle and scilly.

i could of been a contender

but alas like nearly all 'kid listers' i succumbed to beer and women! their comes a time in 'kid listers' life when beer tastes better than stale coffee from a flask and getting a feel of tit is better than seeing a beared tit.

once you have tasted the beer and decided that a quick juvenile shag in the alley outside the nightclub is better than birding your fucked! birding takes a back seat for a year or 4!

so my advice to 'kid listers' is leave the women alone and stick to coffee, and if your a 'kid lister' from devon id lay off kicking the american bittern around!

woodcock,little owl and lashings of ginger beer

well back to work today,so no waxwings.
on the way home through jagger green near holywell green 1 little owl and 1 woodcock made the long drive home bearable.
fish and chips for tea from a proper fish shop washed down with a few bottles of.......................

more waxwings

searched yesterdays sites with no luck,despite dave sutcliffe texting to say their was 20 around the fire station at king cross.so walked down hopwood lane towards town.

found 50+ in the trees between the bottom of lister lane and gibbet street (bedford st).very hard to get an exact count as they were flying around quite a bit.last saw them flying towards hanson lane.great birds

waxwing

bedford st, halifax

wainhouse terrace

watch out for needles! when looking for

waxwings

seek and thee shall find

went to find the 12 waxwings seen around skircoat this afternoon managed to see 13 around the murgatroyd arms,texted the news to dave sutcliffe who texted back that there was 15 at king cross.

the flock had reached 17 at the rear of the fire station,and walking back home i had 26 fly over towards parkinson lane.

good stuff

waxwings

photos by NCD

not a bad day in all,considering i was just birding 'urban'

waxwing 26

dipper 1

grey wagtail 3

common gull 21

black headed gull 3

sparrowhawk 1

goldfinch 6

in search of waxwings

searched all over town this morning for waxwings,with out any luck.

the only highlight was finding 2 teddy bears ripped to pieces and dumped by the nestle factory!!


queens road

got home early afternoon only find out 12 are on skircoat! which is viewable from my house arrgh

birds and sunshine around southowram

nice and sunny today,im afraid ive done too much walking over the last few days as i really struggled with the last few miles home.

cormorant 1 EGP

great crested grebe 1 EGP

common gull 76 coal pit lane

redpoll 3 coal pit lane

skylark 15 coal pit lane

grey partridge 5 beacon hill

lapwing 13 marsh delves

meadow pipit 24 beacon hill

bullfinch 2 norcliffe

fieldfare 1 siddal

great spotted woodpecker 1 coal pit lane,1 norcliffe,1 EGP

green woodpecker 1 sunny vale,1 EGP

nuthatch 1 brookfoot

sparrowhawk 1 male coal pit lane

autumn leaves

a nice family group of 'fridgus dumpus' along norcliffe lane

high royd sf

walked down to high royd this afternoon

heres my quick and easy summary..................it was shit

id have depression and anxiety if i lived in

sowerby bridge

sowerby bridge

branwell bronte

no doubt pissed up

the puzzle inn

around the parish of southowram

Despite the crappy weather I set off this afternoon on a nice long walk around southowram,I love this time of year,the leaves are falling and changing colour giving the area some much needed colour, the air is full of wood smoke and as the evening draws in the village has that nice coal fire smell.

I was in a rambling mood and found quite a few new footpaths and bridleways to explore, started out towards coal pit lane which had 62 fieldfare, 49 common gulls and 8 linnets,as I reached southowram another 16 fieldfares flew over marshals quarry.

Made my way towards southowram cricket club and decided to follow binns top lane into park wood along here I saw 2 jay’s , 1 great spotted woodpecker 6 goldcrest’s and a treecreeper. Park wood was very quiet apart from 3 jay’s.

Elland gp offered a chance for some good birds, I reality it was poor 38 siskin, 18 redpoll, 2 cormorant,1 great crested grebe, 2 tufted ducks and 1 grey heron. I decided to go to freemasons wood and take the track to the delvers, I always find this area very quiet so I wasn’t surprised to see nothing. Wood lane which is across the road from the delvers and heads into the walterclough valley had large numbers of thrushes 27 redwings, 15 blackbirds, 8 song thrushes along with 2 female bullfinches.heading along the top of walterclough valley towards marsh delves I saw very little with only 8 mistle thrush near the long gone ‘who could a thought it’ pub.

Marsh delves towards beacon hill, I came across and a few bird feeders in a garden near long lane usual birds with 1 great spotted woodpecker and 2 coal tits. Bank top village had a good count of 11 collared doves. Nothing at beacon hill, the long slog home along the hebble was brightened up with 3 grey wagtails and 2 dippers.

After that 14 mile walk I don’t feel so guilty about having a few beers and burgers this evening!!!

not a car friendly town

old BBRC rejected birds

found some old BB rarity reports on the shelf (1976,1978,1979 and 1980) they include some very interesting rejected birds the best are

1972-SIBERIAN TIT,Boughton, Downham Market Norfolk 6th and 8th February

1975-SLENDER BILLED CURLEW,Poole Harbour, Dorset 12th to 14th April

1975-SLENDER BILLED CURLEW, Shoreham by Sea, Sussex 16th and 23rd November

1976-BOOTED EAGLE,Romney Marsh,Kent 15th May

1976-TENGMALM'S OWL,Cley,Norfolk, 3rd and 5th September

1976-SOOTY ALBATROSS-Sandwich Bay,Kent 2nd October

1976-GREAT BLACK HEADED GULL,Seacombe,Merseyside1st September

1976-GREAT BLACK HEADED GULL,Keyhaven Marsh, Hampshire 30th October

1977-SLENDER BILLED CURLEW,Nigg Bay, Highland 16th October

1977-GREAT BLACK HEADED GULL,Sully Island,Glamorgan 16th June

1977-GREAT BLACK HEADED GULL,Cresswell Pond,Northumberland 29th October

1978-MADEIRAN PETREL-Hilbre,Mersyside 11th September

1978-BLACK SHOULDERED KITE, Whitehaven,Cumbria 20th July

1978-GREAT BLACK HEADED GULL,Selsey Bill,Sussex 7th September

1979-HAWK OWL, Cley Norfolk 18th May

1979-MOUSTACHED WARBLER, Forness,Kent, 8th to 9th May

1980-BULWERS PETREL,Worthing,Sussex 12th and 23rd May

1980-SLENDER BILLED CURLEW.Luddenham Marshes,Kent 10th May

note the amount of great black headed gull records from the mid 70's makes you wonder!!!!

calling all Halifax Birders

next year is the 20th anniversary of the Halifax Birdwatchers Club, and im writing a report on the rare and scarce birds that have been found in Halifax

im after accounts from the finders of said rare birds in Halifax, i know that not all Halifax Birders read this blog but if you know someone that has found a rare bird in Halifax then please try to get an account.

or i would be grateful for any accounts even if you twitched the birds!!

also any photos would be most welcome

the scillies go into meltdown

the shetland birders thought they were doing well this autumn with loads of rare birds being found,but in the last few days the isles of scilly have gone into complete meltdown!

eleonora's falcon

not flying over porthellick bay

sharp shinned hawk

not flying over the garrison

far eastern curlew

not on porthcressa beach

the uk400 club has already accepted the birds,president evans was overheard saying 'we need to get the scillies back on track so tick em'

birding on the web

as i sit here with a beer and a ciggy trying to sort out my yorkshire list which is actually rather hard to do as cant recall seeing a Bewicks Swan in yorkshire,but i must of!!

inbetween trying to sort the list out i found the following great birding websites/blogs

first is Kenn Kaufmans having read Kingbird Highway i was not surprised by how he looks!

second is Manchester Birding which despite being the wrong side of the pennines is a great site,loads of info and very interesting articles.well worth a look.

and last but not least is HeavyBirder well the title photo speaks for itself...............Rickenbakers,Leeds UTD,Yorkshire Birding .

not much posted yet but i expect great things.