Hawfinch...

It’s not everyday that you get to fulfill a small ambition, but this morning, at first light, I parked up at Sizergh Castle, near Kendal, to see if I could spot a hawfinch. In light drizzle I spotted some chaffinches, goldfinches, a pair of bullfinches, a song thrush (no longer a common bird) and tits looking for nesting sites. Then I saw my hawfinch, perched on top of a tree: slightly bigger than a bullfinch, and thickset, with a disproportionately large head and beak (able to crack cherry stones). To celebrate I had breakfast at Booths in Carnforth.

I called in at Leighton Moss too, and saw my first summer visitor: not a swallow but a sand martin, dipping and swooping over the water. There was plenty of wildfowl: pink footed goose, canada goose, teal, pochard, wigeon, shoveler, mallard, tufted duck, gadwall, little grebe, great crested grebe and five snipe, amazingly well camouflaged against the reeds. The little egrets are now so common that birders no longer point them out. The marsh harriers were quartering over the reed-beds; I heard a cetti’s warbler singing and a greater spotted woodpecker drumming. A lady with a jamjar full of mealworms had robins feeding out of her hand. You wouldn’t want a hawfinch on your hand; it might snip a finger off with that massive beak…

I've licenced a few church pix lately; this is St Botolph's in Limpenhoe, Norfolk...