Although I've always watched birds in passing over my 59 years, it's only in the last few weeks that I've begun to look a little closer. I'm fortunate to have a friend who hasn't wasted his formative years and knows a great deal about birds, as he showed me on recent trips to Freiston and Deeping Lakes. We (that's the royal we) identified 32 species at the former, and 24 at the latter, and if I'd been on my own it would have been about 10 at each! I didn't spot the goldeneye amongst the tufted ducks, and the shoveler over the other side of the lake might as well have been in Australia. I didn't even identify the Marsh Harrier patrolling the mudflats at Freiston, and I'm sure I would have walked right past the redshank and grey plover. I'm so bad I had dismissed the family of birds on my neighbours chimney as rooks/crows (and that's with binoculars!!) until he pointed out gently they were jackdaws. I'm working on the principle it gets a little easier as time goes on, and hopefully joining LBC and regularly visiting this site will help. And isn't it GREAT!!! I actually can't wait to go out again. I would suggest though that you are wary when driving around Holbeach at the moment - it's proving pretty tricky being distracted from practising identification by the little matter of driving a car. Surely that's what cruise control was invented for?
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