Happy Days.

Black-throated Diver. Martin Lofgren @ Wild Bird Gallery 

As a mega for the location, I had to twitch the Blea Tarn Reservoir juvenile Black-throated Diver yesterday, after all it's on my doorstep, well about a mile away anyhow, and with a little elevation over the reservoir from the track to Middle Langthwaite Farm, the bird gave good views, and at one point obliged by keeping still whilst preening....Nice.

Smew. Jan Larsson @ Vingspann  

The perfect example of 'right place, right time' to find the mega diver there, and reminded me of a visit I paid to this very same reservoir 25 years ago on 5 March 1993, when I called there on my way to do my Saturday bit in the days of delivering car parts, to find a stunning drake Smew there, a scarce if not rare sight in our area today. 

Another record I came across, was that of up to 300 finches seen on 5 December 1995, my record reads....'A flock of Chaffinch and Brambling held up to 300 birds found below a Beech at Levens Bridge in Cumbria, the greater majority of this flock was of up to 250 Brambling with Chaffinch'....They were seen in a year when the beech mast crop was excellent, and when I had found eleven mostly local Brambling locations....Happy Days. 

Thanks to Martin and Jan for the excellent photographs.