It wasnt a Skylark after all.......but something better for me at least...

 

The Skylark that I thought I had photographed yesterday at Lake Farm, is in fact a Meadow Pipit. Thanks Sandra Palme :) ........ again lol.

 

Below are the photos I didnt publish (for obvious reasons) but looking at them now, and comparing them in my Collins 'bible', I agree. The beak is sharper and pointier, and the breast markings are un-mistakeable. My previous photo (posted yesterday) showed an angle where you couldnt determine the shape or size of the bill.

 

 

 

 

This is a first for me at Lake Farm, so am very pleased, and will be adding this to my February sightings list for the LNHS.

 

I have never claimed to be an expert in bird identification, usually I slip up by 'calling' the wrong bird before my brain has engaged. Recently I mis-identified a Mistle Thrush, by calling it a Song Thrush, but my brain knew it was a Mistle so I was shocked at my own error. I done a similar thing in Norfolk last year, I 'called' a Pochard when it was a Wigeon. I knew what I wanted to say but my mouth spat out something completley wrong. My most famous 'error' was when I was with a good friend in a hide at the London Wetland Centre, and I 'called' Wheateater !!!!! Of course it was a Wheatear, and I'll probably never live that one down !! Luckily its a private joke and he's never held it against me !!

 

So apologies to everyone who thought I'd got my first Skylark of the year, I instead got my first Meadow Pipit at Lake Farm ever.................