What a difference a day makes ! today was mild very windy and even the sun came out for a while ,mind you this was after torrential rain overnight which melted all the lying snow and left the ground saturated again.So it came as no suprise to find 47 Lapwing on the adjacent fields , but what was a suprise was the flock of at least 1000 Lapwings which flew over from the now flooded river meadows, a great sight.
The other main featurec of the day was the start of the northward movement of Skylark , with the winter flock of 47 plus birds still on pasture and another at least 19 seen heading directly north. There seems to be only 2 Meadow Pipits left now ,the others having moved on.Winter Thrush 's totalled 85 plus Fieldfare and 20 plus Redwing, and a Mistle Thrush was noted.
The best of the rest were 5 Stock Dove ,just 100 plus Starling, and a Buzzard
So perhaps the first hints of Spring or am I being over optomistic?
The patch species remains the same.