Speckled chesters.

With the migrant birds slow to come through there seems to be an abundance of the speckle chested birds - how many of these are migrants heading north but being held up here? The Skylark is one that, I think, we'll keep as most of these birds are setting up territories and they are not over abundant.

The usual distractions to hold you up...

...and a fly past Oystercatcher reminding me to move on!

I took some photos of Dog Violet for the previous post but they were not that good so an improved shot makes the grade.

Back to the speckle chested ones....Redwing are not around in big numbers but they are a winter visitor so these should head back to their breeding grounds in Iceland

Song Thrush numbers are really high at the moment but the local birds are busy setting up territories so you have to assume that these loose flocks of 10-20 birds are migrant birds.

The two pipits next - Meadow Pipit numbers are always high so seeing these flocks in the field is fairly normal at this time of year but where do they belong? There are plenty of birds going through the display rituals so they should stay and breed but what of these 20-40 bird flocks in the fields? They could be waiting for warmer conditions before setting up territories on higher ground or they could be migrants waiting to move on.

The Rock Pipit number don't change much at all so, I guess, they are local birds. I've not seen any display from these birds to indicate the onset of breeding but they do appear to be paired up.