waxwings smackhead city

found 5 waxwings at work in castlefields runcorn today.ive been working in runcorn for 8 years so they made a nice work tick.

sunday 7th november........not bad!

walked around the town area in the afternoon

some good birds for such a dull day.

waxwing 7 over pellon lane near aldi

brambling 2 at shroggs park just below the football pitch

redwing 18 in snake hill wood

sparrowhawk 1 male over shroggs tip

grey wagtail 5 along the hebble from old lane to siddal

mallard 36 in peoples park

manage to find the location of the wonderfully named Spice Cake Lane which was located between King Cross Road and West Parade. it gets it name from funerals of all things,which currant loaves and spice cake were popular food at such an event.hence the local saying

''looks like a case of currant cake and slow walking''

reputations were made with the quality of the funeral teas! must have been some good spice cake in west parade around 1800.

on the way home past dean clough mills i took a photo from Blue Ball Bridge of the Hebble under North Bridge. i knew i had a seen an old photo very similar a while back,when i found it the result was very similar.

The Hebble from Blue Ball Bridge

1887

The Hebble from Blue Ball Bridge

2010

birds,nature,history and industry

a great walk today though the weather was unseasonally warm,birds were on the quiet side.

coal pit lane

common gull increased to 98

stock dove 7

redwing 4

meadow pipit 2

at the top of the lane i got great views across yorkshire and could even see Drax power station in the distance which is 35 miles away as the needle tailed swift flies!!! headed into Binns Wood and towards Elland GP.i gave the lakes a miss due to the amount of people and made my way into the old tip looking for jack snipe and only found 16 meadow pipits.

the power stations

Ferrybridge,Eggborough and Drax

following the river past the weir onto shaw lane i had a look around the recently demolished brickworks.another lost industry gone locally.

it was quite good for finches with 7 bullfinch and 34 redpolls and the surrounding hedgerows held 67 house sparrows.

Calder Fireclay Works

cutting across the fields between lower edge road and dewsbury road, i wanted to have a look at a very old hall,Halifax has so many of these old halls its hard to get the time to see them all.

the New Hall of Elland is actually 520 years old.

i realised this hall was built before columbus went to america!!! now thats old.

built in 1490 and cased in stone sometime between 1640 & 1670. two beams in the roof are said to be from a local gallows which may explain the ghost story that accompany's the house.......

local birders will be well aware of the Tag Cut at the gravel pits, it gets it name from Tag the ghost that rode a chariot pulled by a 2 headed horse from a tunnel under New Hall towards Tag Cut................nightime moth'ers beware!!

New Hall Elland

note the beautiful 'apple and pear' window

mind the step

upper edge

walking towards Elland i saw a very sad site.............the demolition of Gannex Mill,made famous by Harold Wilson.

i would of rather seen it turned into soulless flats than raised to the ground.

Gannex Mill

RIP

i can see me getting into fungi and ladybirds

Jews Ear

pine ladybird

hebble trail

moth runcorn

found this at work today,at first thought it was a twig!!! no idea what it is!!

large ego aka the hardman of birding

i like a bit of juicy gossip as much as the next birder,so this e-mail from a certain listserve certainly puts puts Mr Evans not as George Michael but as 'THE BOSS' libellous bloggers be aware!! he will come and sort it out!!

ive witheld the recpients name

''**** *****

I do not participate in Birdforum threads as a matter of choice but if you
would like to continually talk about me in a libellous way, can you kindly
email me directly or perhaps place your vitriol on here so that I can
respond directly to your claims.

As far as I know, you don't know me from Adam and have never spoken to me
and know nothing about me or how I operate.

I shall be visiting Tacumshin this week and with any luck, it may be
possible to link up with you. I can drive over to west Cork if need be because
the irritation you are causing me knows no bounds and I would like the
opportunity to sort it out

Lee G R Evans''

THAT Twitching programme

Barry Bagnell whilst he came across as a nice chap,i got the impression he as clueless as a chimp.the poor chap is so scared of upsetting lee,he was quivering like a baby when lee told him the gull was not the azorean gulls, BARRRY grow a set of fucking balls.

i would have thought with all the twitching Barry doeas, his wife would have plenty of free time to do some housework and replace the wallpaper that was hanging off the wall.

the Craig's came across as a bit looney but Mrs Craig is a GILF. and we are all jealous of Mya's year list,at least the older daughter seems to have found a hobby of her own when her parents leave her in the house alone.

Lee Evans was obviously confused as he seems to be suffering from a bout of schizophrenia and a bad case judging how likens himself to george micheal and gordon brown.

i just thought lee liked birds.

and lastly poor old Brett,poor fella is so skint he cant twitch anymore.

sunday fairburn ings and bubwith ings

a short visit to fairburn ings around lunchtime if only to see some birds,well mainly diving ducks which i have had a long time interest in,but alas too misty,in the hour i was there i could only muster willow tit,water rail and a few pintail.

bubwith was dry so only tree sparrows though some one did try to make a group of grazing sheep in to swans.

all in all a crap day!!

found some old photos heres the first.......................

pigeon on

the Empire State Building

NYC

July 2001

here's a heron sat in a bush at fairburn yesterday

the only working coal mine in yorkshire the BIG K