A lesson in counting
The Canons Farm Linnet flock is not the easiest group of birds to count. They rarely combine together and prefer to feed in smaller groups spread across several adjacent fields, but every so often they do meet up and wheel across the skyline before breaking up once more. Such a ball of activity calls for snap judgement of numbers present - it is far easier to count the smaller aggregations, and as long as you keep your wits about you and do not double-count, add those figures up to get a (fairly) accurate count. Sometimes they do the right thing... Yesterday afternoon the birds came together over Tarts Field, and whereas 150 peeled away and landed back on the stubble, the rest landed in a nearby tree. I took a picture of this gathering and then started to count the perched birds, but I was stymied by a continual procession of small flocks peeling off and disappearing into neighbouring fields. How many were there? I reckoned at least 200, maybe even 250. Don't cheat, what do you r...