1st November 2009

Apologies for the lack of presence in the last few days, but I've had quite a lot of personal matters to attend to. I'm now in South Yorkshire for a few days ( in Sheffield ). My son has accused me of bringing Islay weather with me as, for several hours today, it rained really heavily together with a good F.6/7 wind!!

We managed to get out to various areas to the west of Sheffield in the afternoon and I thoroughly enjoyed being in old " stamping grounds".Whilst all of the watercourses were swollen with the recent rain we still managed to see Dipper near Deepcar, but then moved to near Broomhead where we were extremely fortunate to have quite good views of a male Northern Goshawk over a plantation. Sadly one of the plantations in which they nested has been partially felled and recent feedback suggests persecution is as bad as ever. A great shame for what is a magnificent raptor!!

Local reservoirs produced a somewhat predictable array of duck and the conditions once again started to deteriorate. So, home James, for what was then a rather spectacular firework display at the nearby training ground of Sheffield Wednesday football club!