Beak full

I said last week that I thought the redwings on Arnside Knott had nearly exhausted the supply of yew berries, and were beginning to move on elsewhere. The next day there were still large numbers on the south side of the Knott, and I thought I had been wrong.  But today the hawthorns around the car park at Leighton Moss were full of redwings and fieldfares gorging on the berries. So perhaps I was at least partly right.  Is there a hierarchy of food preference for the redwings?  They seem to home in first each Autumn on the yew berries, and when they are newly arrived they are flighty and easily flushed by a man and his dog walking past. Then they move onto other berries, and this is a particularly good year for hawthorns. And after all the berries are exhausted, is that when they turn to feeding in the fields?

Strangely this was my first visit to LM since I finished work 6 weeks ago. And it was a beautiful blue-sky day after the wind and rain of the weekend. I was there to mark the occasion of one of my other ex-colleagues leaving. I joined the group for lunch and a walk to Lower Hide in the afternoon.  In the morning, I had been doing my Roadie duties supporting Mrs G.