Misty Wolstonbury Hill

 In order to protect my 3/4 of a tank of petrol, I cancelled a planned trip out and stayed local, dropped Margie at work and headed down New Way Lane, to tackle Wolstonbury Hill, bit of drizzle in the air and low misty cloud was not filling me with confidence, although the first thing I heard getting out of the car was a singing Chiffchaff which cheered me up a bit!

There is a hill there somewhere!

Misty 

To start with my pessimism was justified, very little in the woodland fringe around the bottom, heard some Nuthatches, a Great Spotted Woodpecker, Green Woodpecker and a few bits and pieces. Things improved somewhat as I went through the gate and started up the hill, more open ground here, grassland with bushes, nice group of Chiffchaffs with a couple of Blackcaps in amongst them, pics were at a premium as the birds zipped through the branches, several Blue Tits and a couple of Stonechats and the inevitable Robins!

Chiffchaff

Stonechat

Robin

Stonechat

Blue Tit

Blue Tit

The summit was shrouded in cloud and mist so I decided to traverse the front of the slope, I followed the path like a young mountain goat, despite the near vertical drop, this route allows you to look down on a nice copse and a few bushes, although a bit distant, a few birds here, more Chiffchaffs and Blue Tits another Blackcap and a very nice male Yellowhammer!

Plenty of flowers in the grass still and lots of insects including a couple of Hornets

Not the usual panoramic views!

Chiffchaff

Yellowhammer

Yellowhammer

Terrible record shot of a Blackcap!

The mist lifted slightly so I headed up to the top along the fence line just below the summit, there were 3 Stonechats, 2 Goldfinch, a Meadow Pipit, a Chiffchaff and a Robin on the fence and bushes but the angle I was at made pics difficult!

Juvenile Goldfinch

Goldfinch and Stonechat

Stonechat

Goldfinch and a few berries!

This fence line was very busy and I hung about in the hope of something good but it was all Stonechats and Goldfinch, no Flycatchers, Redstarts or Whinchats 😢😢 which was a shame, as I was watching in the background a bird loomed through the mist flying low around the hillside, Red Kite which gave reasonable views!

Red Kite

I headed up to the summit the path is quite wide and suddenly the familiar white flash as a Wheatear flew up in front of me, Wheatear are either the best posers in the world or really elusive and unfortunately this was one of the latter, I went full stalking mode but the undulating ground played into the birds hands, so only poor shots possible!

Trig Point on top of the hill

About the best I managed of the Wheatear

Couple of Meadow Pipits

The advantage of going full stalking mode means occasionally lucking into something good other than the target bird, in this case a Green Woodpecker which for once I spotted before it spotted me hurrah!!!

Green Woodpecker

Red in the moustache makes this a male

Rather to many pics of it really but don't get many chances at them and on a slow day you take ya opportunities where you can!! Brief views of a Kestrel several Meadow Pipits around were very flighty and camera shy there was also a large flock of Finches flying around in the mist, but didn't land near me think probably Linnets rather than Goldfinches though could have been a few mixed in!

I headed down the hill, spent far to long hanging around a bush that I saw an interesting bird fly into, turned out to be a Whitethroat, a bit of drizzle now, the paths are chalk and slippery at the best of times, but in these conditions, were like an ice sheet covered in marbles, after 2 practice slips, I finally went arse over tit down the slope, luckily with the agility of a cat I managed to save the Camera and the Bins but my hand, wrist and luckily quite padded bottom were not so lucky😱😱!! I hobbled down the rest of the hill, more Chiffchaffs and some Great Tits but my heart was no longer in it so headed back to the car, home and some paracetamol 😲

Kestrel

Great Tit with berries, seems to have a growth or maybe a tick on it's face!

So a quiet walk on a grey day, few nice bits would have hoped for a bit  more in the way of migration, plenty of berries on the bushes so might be worth a look for Ring Ouzels in the next couple of weeks!!