Gail and I rose to a 4:30 am alarm and got all of our kit together, and when I went out to put it in the car it was foggy. Flippin' 'eck, or words to that effect, fell from my mouth and I dashed back inside to check the weather forecasts...again! Last night the forecast for northwest Cumbria, around the Solway Firth area, was fine; light cloud with a 5 mph ENE wind and moderate visibility. Spot on! Another look this morning and it did indeed show fog for northwest Cumbria, but clearing by 0800. That was on the BBC weather app., so I checked the Met Office forecast and XC, and all agreed. Great, back out to the car and off we set.
The drive north varied from light mist, to fog, to clear skies and everywhere in between. We arrived at our coastal survey site and it was foggy. In fact you can see what it was like from the picture below taken from my VP location.
We decided to do the transect first in the hope that the sun would burn the fog away, but it wasn't to be. On our walk round we recorded four Skylarks (three of them singing), eleven Meadow Pipits, at least one Grey Partridge, three Song Thrushes (two singing) and a single Rock Pipit.
Back at the VP and it hadn't changed, it still looked like the above shot, so we packed in and headed home. I'm back there later in the week, so I'm looking forward to some decent weather this time.
Two first for the year visitors in the garden this evening; Common Plume moth and Hedgehog. It was great to see the hedgehog again, and you might remember from last autumn all the under weight youngsters I had to rescue! Let's hope that this year they don't have as late a litter, fingers crossed.
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