LGL is a lucky charm

It was probably the years best day so far, bright and sunny, light breeze, 10 degrees, all at ease.....no I'm not doing poetry. Woodpeckers were out in force and I felt LSW could be out there, a Nuthatch sang but remained unseen in the big Poplar other side of the Loddon near the green bridge, I did a quick check of LFGP and checking all the gulls 3-4 times I left and parked at Lavell's car park.

I enjoyed the 5 Lesser Redpoll on the Nyjer feeders but it felt too sunny to linger in the hides, so walked slowly out and picked up 2 Common Buzzard, 5 Red Kite, 3 Bullfinch, then a Sparrowhawk shot by whilst I chatted a while with Linda (LGL), having a seen a Muntjack bolt across the path between us.

As we chatted on the tarmac path, I noticed 3 flocks of Fieldfare pass over W, WNW, first 30-40, then 70-80, then another 30+, just 2's & 3/'s of Redwing with them, as we continued chatting 2 'corvids' drifted in from the North and I glanced up, at first not paying them much attention, even collapsing my tripod legs during the chat preparing for an imminent departure, but after a third glance, I binned them and realised they were large, had broad wingspans, were heavy billed and had obvious wedge shaped tails. I dropped down to open up my scope without wasting time on re-extending the tripod legs and quickly got good views of them as they circled at about 500 feet, but began quickly drifting SE.

Getting my 85th species for the year (87th for the park) was all down to having a nice chat with Linda, had I not bumped into her I would have left too early to have seen them, thanks Linda.