PENDLE HILL WAS EVIL TODAY in a blasting, cold easterly wind that was so strong at times I could hardly stand up at the summit. Consequently there were few birds, just a couple of local breeding wheatears and a flock of 15 golden plovers. I recorded the distant songflight of one yesterday as it struggled into a strong head-wind. Their mournful call is one of the sounds of my childhood birding walks on the moors near my grandparents' home in Weardale. There have not been any more dotterels yet but it is surely only a matter of time and it is weather like today's that produced a ringed plover on the summit a few years ago. It was interesting to note that the Christian fundamentalists who attached a wooden cross to the trig point took it down today, Easter Sunday. It wasn't a very impressive feat to carry such a small cross up the hill either, so small it was suitable only for crucifying a small child or a squirrel but I suppose it is the thought that counts.