About 20m away Kev.
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Practising flight shots today
Black-headed gull
Herring gull
and a moody shot of a common gull
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Love the herring gull
Started hearing skylarks for the first time this year a week ago. They’ve usually been around a while longer, but tend to be most active in the most middle-of-nowhere spots that I only walk occasionally. Always lifts the spirits when they strike-up.
Today I heard the first sedge warbler of the year, definitely a favourite since they sing at night when I’m dogwalking.
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Listened to the skylarks when up at Leeds baby sitting 2 weeks ago. Wonderful but always a challenge to spot, real high when we finally spot one. Never heard one at home in Shropshire.
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Wow, that’s an impressive early record.
It could be close to the earliest ever spring record for Lincs.
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There have been skylarks here for the last 2-3 weeks. Rarely just one. Are they laying claim to territory ? They seem most common over the large blank ex-cereal fields, both on the Thames valley floor and on the lower terraces of the chalk downs.
VB
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Courtship displays probably. I’ve even had a couple singing here and we’re always well behind England.
I tried to get a pic of one in display flight but it was so far away it is a massively cropped image.
They are lovely to hear, makes you think that spring has arrived.
My personal indicator is when I hear the first drumming snipe, then I know it’s spring proper 
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As a yonker visiting my cousins in the late spring early summer at Ingleton North Yorks we would fly fish the River Doe upstream for native brown trout up until above Beasley Falls took you onto the glacial moor running off the shoulder of Whernside… magical place for bird call…Snipe…Partridge…Golden plover…Skylark…Lapwing and the haunting call of Curlew …a magical place
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Substitute whimbrel and dunlin for partridge and that’s what I hear from my garden every day in spring.
That’s why I love this place.
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‘Twas an almost spiritual experience up there on the moor after a days fly fishing…mind you at that age we were pretty keen to get back down into the village…drink as much as able and attempt to bonk any female that moved 
From idyllic memories of the wonders of the avian world to getting pissed and bonking the locals, in one sentence
Only on the AA
been there, done that
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Joie de Vivre of youth my friend I still have my weapon of those days a 6’8” Sharpe’s of Aberdeen “The Scottie” split cane brook rod which was my fathers and is over 65 years old…the flys of choice being Snipe and Purple and Partridge and Orange
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Cool - hadn’t expected that to be so. Not a thing tonight mind, so may have moved on, or just too damn windy. I walk past the same stretch of reedy riverbank twice a day, so hopefully confirmable.
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Bet you’re glad about that 
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Could be a passage bird moving further North.
FYI the first record of Sedge W in the UK this year was 8th March at Christchurch. Incredible early and at least 2 weeks earlier than the average between 2000 and 2020.
I haven’t seen any reports of Sedge W in Lincs. (apart from yours, of course)
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Kestrel in the warm sun today
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Great pic Ben
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Minor coincidence, but Xch is my home town. I think you’re probably right about the passage migrant, as nothing to be heard earlier today again, perhaps tonight tho, as it’s been very warm today and now the high winds have diminished… I’m confident about what I heard, simply 'cos you put me right last year, and so I spent a lot of time listening to recordings vs reed warblers. We probably have both, but the sedge warbler seems to have the upper hand numerically in our immediate area.
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