looking back at Pine Buntings

a flock of 60 Yellowhammers on my patch at the moment clearly needs a close look for the Pine Bunting a species that seems to have almost dropped off the UK radar in recent years; also got me thinking back to past encounters

Big Waters fem March 1st 1990
Dagenham Chase male Feb 18th 1992
Gibraltar Point male  March 31st 1995

In the olden days I used to try and sketch things and made a lot more notes than I do now; lazy camera recording -- first two attached below; the Dagenham bird twitched by train at a time when I travelled free around the UK and a really cracking bird that I seem to recall I saw on my own-  what would the chances of that be nowadays even mid-week -- the Gib Point bird staked out in Syke's Plantation appeared at the feeding station after a few tense hours the first and only Lincs record and likely to stay that way? the yellow tones to the Big waters sketches are due to paper staining over the 25 years in the folder they were white originally honest!

then fast forward to the Camargue February 9th - 10th 2004 and 3 Pine Buntings, two adult males and a first-winter male with a large flock of Yellowhammers -- very very poor attempts at digi-scoping them -- so need to find a nice male that is photogenic!