Colds playing havoc with my time in the field

Another bout of colds, headaches, sort throats etc, has kept me out of action, but as it was the last day of the month I thought I'd get out for an hour and put up another old feeder at LFGP which I only cleaned yesterday. Even before we got to the hide I said to Richard "Shelduck, in front of the Sand Martin wall". From the hide we could see it was a splendid male, the first this year....at last. 88th species for the month, 91 for the year, my 88th.

Also present were 400+ Lapwing, 300-400 Starling, usual 150 Wigeon, a lone bobbing Snipe, numerous Red Kite and Buzzard up, plus a distant Sparrowhawk.

A few 'small job's pinged around remaining unidentified finches, but I did get brief glimpses of Skylark and what I think were 2 Meadow Pipit going over the brow of the far landfill, the latter being a month tick so unless someone gets a Grey Wagtail we finished February on a very respectable 89.


A handful of Adult Lesser Black Backed Gulls and other 2nd winter Herring types came and went, I paused on one 2nd winter, but concluded it was Herring.