I eased into the day chilling in the living room with my wife - she was reading while I scanned through photographs of owls taken at Eldernell and Deeping Lakes the day before. I'd spent the previous day birding with Kevin Heath but this morning he was out at Sarsgrove, Chipping Norton. He'd read a post by Nick Truby and had gone to see flocks of finches there himself. He sent videos and photos on WhatsApp of large flocks containing linnet, chaffinch and brambling - one brambling flock containing dozens of birds.
I'd forgotten that Charlotte had a tennis league match after lunch and so I took the opportunity and visited myself. While it had been a sunny morning, the afternoon had turned overcast by the time I arrived - a shame but any photos would have been quite tricky into the low sun and so not all was lost.
From the road I could see a flock of c.500 birds with much of it containing linnet. There were also still large numbers on the ground and in trees to the left and right of the seed field - quite a sight. I worked around the perimeter of the righthand wood, initially picking out mostly linnet and chaffinch. As I reached the far end, I started to pick out more than single bramblings with groups of a dozen or more at a time; the largest single group I had was 15.
I worked around the wood and decided that I'd seen at least four separate groups of brambling totalling 50+ birds. These were only those that I'd found in the wood and I'm sure there were many others in the fields and in the trees opposite. I'd seen a fantastic number of finches flocking and added brambling to the year list. A great way to spend the early afternoon and the rest I spent in a queue to remove the mud caked on the car from the journey to and from Lincolnshire.
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