Decided to head up to the Honey Buzzard watchpoint on Ashdown Forest this morning, the birds tend to fly between 8.30 til 12ish as I was up early, on site around 6ish, I hit the forest from the Long Carpark with a view to filling a Dartford Warbler shaped hole in my year list. Had a very nice walk, connected with several Dartfords, lots of Linnets about, Skylarks singing, singing Common Redstart which despite narrowing it down to two trees I couldn't find, Chiffchaffs and Willow Warblers singing. Bullfinch calling which I also couldn't see! Several Swallows swooping around, posy Song Thrush. All in all a very pleasant couple of hours! Few pics below
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| Linnets |
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| Stonechat |
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| Stonechat |
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| Skulking Dartford Warbler |
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| Song Thrush |
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| Dartford Warbler getting braver |
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| This one popped up right next to me which was a bonus |
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| Back to skulking |
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| Swallow Silhouette |
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| More blooming beasts, these ones so violent they are tagged!! I was fearless obvs! |
So with time ticking on, I headed back to the car, picked up me Scope and headed to the watchpoint, arriving about 8.30 there was already one guy in place and he'd already seen a Honey Buzzard,whoop! Two other people joined, within in ten minutes the first Honey Buzzard appeared to our left, a male! Sadly it spiralled off away from us! This was the story for the rest of the watch as the day got hotter, we had decent scope views of several Honey Buzzards, including three together on a couple of occasions , but they were all distant so the pictures aren't great, typically several Common Buzzards flew right over our heads in what was possibly a deliberate wind-up, although due to the harsh light the pics of them ain't great either! Other bits of interest were, a Red Kite, also distant, a Goshawk flew along the treeline and over the hotel, a Cuckoo flypast, 3 Mistle Thrushes also flew past and a Tree Pipit sat on a bush. Was pretty constant action, good fun, surprising how quickly, the Iding of the birds became easier, they are quite distinctive in terms of shape and flight once you get your eye in!! Anyway a few pics below!
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| Honey Buzzard |
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| Honey Buzzard |
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| Common Buzzard |
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| HB |
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| HB |
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| HB |
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| HB |
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| CB |
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| HB |
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| HB |
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| HB |
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| HB |
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| HB |
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| HB |
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| HB |
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| HB |
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| HB |
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| Hb |
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| CB right overhead! oh for a HB this close, I could've messed them pics up as well !!! |
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| CB |
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| CB |
A highly enjoyable trip to the forest, from a Birding point of view a great success, with quality scope views of both male and female Honey Buzzards, from a photography point of view not so much, although they are probably my best ever shots of a Dartford Warbler come to think of it they are my best ever shots of Honey Buzzards as well, although that wasn't a very high bar!!!
We were stood on the high view point, while others stayed lower down on the footpath, think we had a better field of view, for instance wouldn't have seen the Goshawk from lower down, but would have been slightly closer to most of the Honey Buzzard action! So you pays your money and takes your chance as they say! Typically I left at about twelve, apparently an hour or so later a Honey Buzzard flew over quite low, seen some good pics of it online!! But I would have probably melted had I stayed any longer in the heat!!!!
