Leeshaw & Upland Moor

Monday 17th October p.m.
After a heavy spell of rain around lunch time it brightened up early this afternoon so I decided to have a run out to Leeshaw Reservoir where it was sunny with a temperature of 12°C.Here there were four Cormorants on the valve tower and three Greylags on the water and a Grey Heron nearby.On the edge of the water at the other side of the reservoir were Lapwing,BH Gull,Common Gull and a couple of LBB Gulls.Pheasants were in the surrounding fields and as I was leaving a number of Starlings flew over, some of the birds had a pale underbelly which made me think there could be some Fieldfare mixed in with them but I couldn't be sure so didn't count them.
  The weather was holding so I decided to move to another location a few miles away where I bumped in to a fellow birder who told me there had been a good number of Fieldfare here this morning.He also told me about a bird which had been seen locally recently, which was a female Black Grouse a rare bird for our area.He showed me where it had been seen as I got some snaps of a Kestrel, the bird was then briefly seen as a Hawk flew towards a tree in the distance and the female Black Grouse flew off.I then went for a walk seeing very little other than a Helicopter but on my way back I did see a flock of Fieldfare which landed in a distant tree.
 As I got nearer the car I bumped in to another birder who had also seen the female Black Grouse but we were unable to locate it after a brief look.We did see a mixed flock of Redwing,Fileldfare and Starlings, then just as we were about to leave he picked up the Black Grouse in the distance.We quickly went to a better vantage point where we could see the bird feeding in the distance, so my thanks to him for getting me a lifer in the form of a female Black Grouse.N.P.

Kestrel

Cormorant

A Fieldfare Tree

Greylags

Gulls

The only bird I saw for a long time

Very distant shot of a female Black Grouse

Leeshaw Reservoir 17/10/2016