Went up onto the local common today (Cleeve Common in Gloucestershire) to show a fellow retiree around. I managed to get some photos of what looked to me like yougstersand I wonder if anyone could cofirm whether they are young or adult.

There were lots of Skylarks about, often in groups of 3 or 4 and they were much more skittish than they usually are, which is one of the reasons I suspect that there may be youngsters about.

Later we came across these 2 Linnets.They kept to the one gorse bush and only moved on when a third bird arrived. Whenever we saw adult Linnets, they always moved on to the next gorse clump whenever we were much further away than we were with this pair: the first 2 pics are the same bird. Also the only noises these 2 made were what I would assume to be "feed me" cheeps.

Do young males show colour this early or is this clearly an adult.

Grateful if anyone could shed any light.

Cheers,

Bob

PS we did have blue skies for quite a large part of the afternoon but its getting very overcast now and rain is forecast, so not a lot new there?