The Birdguides report of a White-tailed Eagle over Wolstonbury Hill albeit from yesterday and reports earlier in the week of a Black Stork over Brighton, decided me on an afternoon skywatch from the bottom of Bullfinch Lane, this would give me a wide field of view along The Downs , from Ditchling Beacon in the east to Chanctonbury Ring in the west, with Jack & Jill, Wolstonbury Hill and the Devil's Dyke in between, the weather was nice and sunny with a fresh breeze, what could go wrong!!! Margie had decided that with streaming eyes from Hay Fever that standing in the middle of farm land on a hot sunny day may not be in her best interests and so stayed at home.
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| Jack & Jill |
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| Wolstonbury Hill |
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| More of the Downs! |
Things started well, as I exited Bullfinch Lane and the fields open up a Kestrel was hunting and showed rather well!!
It basically got closer and closer, steadfastly ignoring my presence, at one point I felt like I was going to be Kestrel food😲, luckily my cake consumption saved the day, making me to heavy for the kestrel to take! Phew!! 😂
I walked up the hill and round the corner to the crossroads where I was to make my stand, Skylarks singing all around, with the occasional snatch of Yellowhammer song, I soon located the Yellowhammer, sitting atop the very post I was going to lean against! On my arrival he vacated to a nearby hedge giving me a dirty look before continuing with his song!
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| Yellowhammer |
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| Relocated Yellowhammer |
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| The church from this viewpoint! |
I settled down to watch, the problem of course is I only have one pair of eyes and with a 360° panorama to keep an eye it was going to be difficult, however the first Buzzard soon revealed itself!
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| Common Buzzard |
As you can see it didn't come very close, but it was the closest one I had in the 2 and a bit hours I watched for!! Saw about 9 Buzzards all told but most were distant dots, unsurprisingly no sign of any WTE or Black Storks, couldn't even get a Knepp White Stork😢 Personally I blame the Yellowhammer who seemed to make it his personal mission to distract me!!
There were a few other bits n pieces flying about, couple of small flocks of Goldfinches all I got the bins on were juveniles, couple of Stock Doves, several Herring Gulls, a few Swallows distantly and a couple of Swifts went over which is always good to see. The Skylarks were periodically making song flights, we know by now how bad I am at getting pictures of em but it doesn't stop me trying of course!!😂
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| Interesting Cloud least I thought so anyway! |
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| Buzzards remained stubbornly distant |
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| When this lot went up, I thought my luck had changed but could nt find the reason for their panic, probably a dog😢 |
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| More woeful attempts at flying Skylarks |
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| This one had the decency to stay on the ground |
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| Buzzard staying distant |
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| Swift saw two today! |
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| Herring Gull |
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| Stock Dove |
At this point the Yellowhammer who I had been steadfastly ignoring, decided enough was enough flipped out of his bush and landed on a fence post a few feet away!!
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| Flipping out |
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| On the post |
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| You looking? |
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| Warming up |
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| Having a sing |
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| Taking a bow |
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| Back to the hedge!! |
Amazing stuff was on that fence post for a good couple of minutes, or 303 photographs if you want to measure it like that😀 Shows what can happen if you just stand quietly on a footpath for a while!
After a couple of hours I decided the WTE wasn't going to show, bit disappointing on the raptor front, with just the Buzzards and the Kestrel to show for my efforts, surprised no Red Kites or a Sparrowhawk but there you go might have had more luck if I'd spent less time looking at Yellowhammers! I headed back down to Bullfinch Lane at the very end of the fields another Yellowhammer flew out of hedge into a tree and had a singsong!!
They do show well at times😂 I estimate there were between 6 and 8 different males and I saw 2 females in the area as well, hopefully they will be successful in their breeding attempts this year!!
I walked up Bullfinch Lane taking a quick diversion to have a look at the horse paddocks which also gives a fine view over the downs, still no raptors but more Stock Doves and a posy Linnet were present.
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| Stock Dove |
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| Linnet |
So little luck with the Raptors but some very showy birds made it an enjoyable couple of hours!!
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