Sightings at Sconce

Went birding to Sconce Lane (the unclassified road/bridleway running NW to SE on the map) after work tonight to twitch a Little owl and to check that the Grey partridge I thought I'd seen while mountainbiking last night really were.

A positive on both counts though rather too distant/dark/fiddly to digiscope effectively.

Grey partridge are "red list" species so I was especially pleased to pick these up. I also saw Curlew displaying.

Woodpigeons

and Rooks.

The Sconce Lane area is a special spot for me as the site of many happy cub and scout camps as a kid and today it's part of my regular route for biking. The place has a long history which you can read about in the PDF file here, from the homespun website of Granville Haigh (a old scout leader of mine).

Bradford Ornithological Group also have a Yellowhammer feeding station here in order to encourage its recovery. Another "red list" species, it's locally (and indeed nationally) scarce. BOG may be having some success. I've seen Yellowhammer in this area and on local moorland, albeit in small numbers, on a number of occasions.

I took this shot of another local resident while I was there too.