The Chattri.

 Margie and I paid a visit to The Chattri today, a war memorial built after the First World War to commemorate Indian Soldiers who died in that conflict! We had seen it on TV before but never visited and as it was just down the road from us and we had got up too late to go anywhere further afield we decided to go, this obviously had nothing to do with the report of a Black Kite in the area yesterday, a lifer for me, that was purely coincidence😏! I never even realised there was a road on the A23/A27 near where the food truck parks, but the maps took us down it and we were able to park at the entrance to the footpath that runs up to the memorial, this looks pretty good habitat to be honest, Hawthorn scrub and Downland, the time of day was against us for passerines, but plenty of Swallows going through and a Buzzard sat on the roof of a farm building was a good start!

Buzzard on a roof

Took to the air on our approach

This is open access land, concentrating on the Buzzard I hadn't notice the large herd of beasts, but before I knew it, like the Apaches in an old western they had us surrounded dominating the high ground!!😱😲

Margie got a pic of the beasts, yes I know they are all laying down, or are they coiled ready for action!

Obviously I have no fear of such beasts and bravely headed up the hill, which luckily took us up the other side of the field, it was pretty quiet walk up the hill just the Swallows and some distant Buzzards, we bumped into another birder coming down the hill, he had seen 6 Kites and several Buzzards which was encouraging! As we continued the Chattri came into view. Margie got some pictures!

We headed on up the hill a couple of Kestrels appeared, one being harassed by a Jackdaw.

Kestrel

Kestrel evading a Jackdaw

We arrived at the Chattri, Margie began investigations while I concentrated on scanning the skies, up to eight Buzzards in the air at same time and a covey of Red-legged Partridge in the distance!

Margie's pics below!

The scenery is pretty impressive up here

Not to far from the city

Red-legged Partridge

At this point I heard a yelp from one of the pathways leading to the memorial, these seem to be at the point of the compass and are lined by thick hedges! Margie appeared shaking her head and going full hysterical, a Spider apparently!! She'd walked through a web and when she brushed it off opened her eyes to come face to face with a spider. Bravely she went back and got some pics!😏 She's still flacking her hair about and shuddering now!!

aaaaargghhhh!! Drama Queen, not like it's a 3 ton bull!!

With prey!

We headed off and continued along the ridge, where he had good views of the Jack and Jill Windmills and Wolstonbury Hill! 

Wolstonbury Hill, scene of my mountaineering heroics a couple of years ago, looks less dramatic from this side!

Jack and Jill

We had seen few small birds, a couple of small flocks of Linnets, but here we saw some Skylarks and a small flock of Goldfinch alighted in a tree! We also saw two Red Kites between us and Wolstonbury but too far for pics!

Juvenile Goldfinch seem to be loads about at the moment

We retraced our steps, as we walked down next to some trees I spotted a bird Flycatching, the trees and bushes here are quite thick here and I didn't have much hope of getting a look at it with a view to getting an ID, when a cracking Spotted Flycatcher landed on an exposed branch 15 feet away and was quickly joined by another, though that disappeared before I got the camera up, bird of the day!

Spotted Flycatcher

Even got the coveted under-chin shot!!

Things were picking up now, with the appearance of a couple of Hobbies, though sadly quite high in the sky!

Hobby

Even higher up Hobby

At this point a Kite appeared and did a low fly by, I got a over excited at this point! It looked small and dark, through the view finder, however the tail was strongly forked, but I conveniently ignored that while I tried to convince myself it was a Black Kite although even through the restricted view of the viewfinder the tail looked suspiciously rufous 😂 Sadly the pics confirm it as a Red Kite!

Think it's just the light making it look dark

The Buzzards that had been loitering just out of range came in for a flypast and a couple of Red-legged Partridges appeared close by and finally one of the cows made it's move!!

Common Buzzard

Buzzard and Rook

Ferociously eating grass!

That was about that, the Chattri was very impressive set in lovely countryside, a fitting tribute to those who fell. The countryside all around looks very promising, will be back and give it a proper early morning go in the next couple of weeks!!!