Headed up to the Jack & Jill Windmills yesterday, close to home which means I don't have to get up that early!! Arrived about 7.25, it was a grey, birds all far away, silhouettey kind of morning!! From the carpark I walked through the horse farm, past the golf course before looping back to the South Downs Way near the Clayton Embankment Nature Reserve, wandered around the reserve before crossing the SDW and exploring the open access land beyond!
Started quite well with a Buzzard on a post, which was spooked by a horse rider and a fair few Stonechats on the fences and shrubs!
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| Buzzard on a post |
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| Stonechat |
I left the horse paddocks behind, the Golf Course had several Common Gulls wandering about. Nice to see these winter visitors back!
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| Common Gull |
Leaving the Golf Course behind down the hill then up the other side, the hedges were quiet here, with a few Blackbirds, Robins and Dunnocks, but the Chiffchaffs seem to have gone. At this point it opens up into agricultural land, more birds here with Skylarks heard around the walk and flocks of Linnets, Goldfinches and Meadow Pipits seen and one flock of Corn Buntings, problem being these were all seen distantly in flight and none chose to settle anywhere near me! A Red Kite was also seen at distance being harassed initially by a small raptor, think Sparrowhawk and subsequently by a Corvid!!
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| Linnet |
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| Jay classic flypast carrying an acorn |
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| Typical view I had of various flocks |
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| Red Kite with Sparrowhawk |
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| Kestrel another classic pose |
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| No sooner had the Kite lost the Sprawk, this Corvid took over! |
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| Even flying upside, couldn't shake it off! |
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| Linnet |
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| Common Gull, flypast |
Arriving at the Nature Reserve, things picked up, a mixed flock of Long-tailed Tits, Blue Tits and Finches was in the Gorse and Bushes, even better when one of the finches turned out to be a Brambling!
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| Brambling |
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| Long-tailed Tit |
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| Stonechat |
These bushes also had a few Goldcrests flitting about, as usual I struggled to get pics but eventually one popped out long enough for the camera to focus.
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| Goldcrest elusive as usual |
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| After a patient 15 mins with hardly any swearing, relatively, this one popped out! |
I headed into the Open Access land, dropping down the steep slope, in the full knowledge I've got to walk back up it later!😰😢so brave.! My hope down here, was for for Thrushes preferably Ring Ouzels, there are a lot of large old Hawthorn bushes down here, absolutely loaded with Berries, there were quite a few Thrushes, I saw several Mistle and Song Thrush, a few Blackbirds and several smaller dark thrushes, which were probably Redwings. However they were generally buried in the trees, so views were limited and pics also tricky! Of interest I had a group of Redwing burst out of a large Hawthorn, with them was a bird, similar size and shape with a bright white rump, realistically there are three options, Jay, Bullfinch and Wheatear, the rump was bright white not the grey of a Fieldfare. It was too small for a Jay, didn't fly like and was the wrong shape for a Bullfinch, so I'm assuming it was a Wheatear, but seems atypical behaviour for a Wheatear as it came out of the bush with the Redwings and dived into another Bush 100 yards further on! I head off in pursuit, but didn't get another sighting!!! The main highlight here though were Red Kites. I was treated to an amazing display from 4 birds interacting, it's hard to say what was actually occurring, though there were several close passes at each other, there was no real venom in the clashes. I'm wondering if it was a family group, maybe the parents, trying to gently move the youngsters on, or teaching them how to hunt, or just simply the exuberance of a group of youngsters messing around, whichever it was a real privilege to watch! The area is a kind of bowl, with one side missing, so I scrambled up to the higher ground, to get above the birds, in order to get shots that weren't just silhouettes, this worked to some extent, although it took me about 2 minutes to get my breath back!! In my defence we've been suffering a Covidy type illness in our house for the last 4 weeks, it's ok when I'm mooching about, but any extra effort takes it out off me!! Anyway some of the pics below!
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| Red Kite cruising |
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| One of the birds was carrying something, looked like some grass rather than a food item |
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| The local Buzzard wasn't happy with all this activity flying across noisily on a couple of occasions |
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| A few Partridges have survived the guns so far, but a lot less Gamebirds, than my last visit a few weeks ago |
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| Lots of twisting and turning but very little actual contact, more of a display than a fight |
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| I've had to lighten these pics considerably to show any detail |
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| Through out the birds were harassed by various Corvids, including this Magpie |
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| Thrush in the bush, pretty much the only bird that sat long enough to get a picture of! |
I headed back up the hill and headed back down the SDW towards the car park, a Common Gull was quartering a field next to the path.
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| Part of a flock of about 30 Goldfinch near the pond |
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| Common Gull |
Do like a Common Gull! I had just reached the Horse Paddocks, 12000 steps in, when a small bird flew off a fence post ahead of me out into the field before doubling back and landing about 100 feet behind me on another fence post. That Robin, I'd seen loads, looked a bit dark, I hummed and hahed before turning around in pursuit, as I closed in on the bird it took off and flew across the field onto the hedge line of an intersecting path, another blooming 100 yards, however this time I was pretty sure I'd seen a flash of red tail!! I hurried back along the SDW and slowly down the intersecting path in full Ninja mode, both my regular readers will remember that this involves bending over slightly and moving even more slowly than usual!! It worked, hurrah , with clonking views of a Black Redstart which posed nicely, before flying across the field to the fence line of the SDW, even further back the way I'd come at which point I turned round and headed home!!
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| Initial distant view, is that ambit of red in the tail. Obviously it is in the pic, which has been lightened but in real life was very gloomy! |
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| Black Redstart |
A very pleasant surprise, I feel it's the Birding Gods rewarding my efforts in difficult conditions! I headed back to the Carpark!
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| I'd seen lots of Robins around the walk, this one I espied through the hedge, was surprised the pic came out this well! |
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| Obligatory Church Pic, from the Car Park |
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A windmill, neither Jack nor Jill but another seen earlier along the SDW!
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A very enjoyable walk, in this area, fast becoming my go to "Patch" only a 10 minutes from home. The Red Kites were highly entertaining hopefully they will stick around and I can have another go at em with a bit of Sunshine, nice to see Goldcrests in several places around the trail and the Brambling was a surprise but bird of the day was definitely the Black Redstart a bit of quality on a dull day!!!
On arrival home joined Margie in doing a bit of gardening, which including cleaning up the pond area, nothing to invasive but would be nice to see the water!! There was a mahousive Frog lurking and also a very small Frog evidence perhaps that at least one of our approximately one million tadpoles has actually made it to Froghood this year !! Was also a couple of Tadpoles lurking in the hornwort!
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| Large Frog in our Pond |
Having exhausted myself gardening, half an hour I'll never get back, I rewarded myself with a small slice of the Passionfruit Cheesecake I'd made Friday night! Tasty, but think the base to cheesey bit ratio was a bit out, I'd used Gluten Free caramelised biscuits and Hazelnuts but think I got the quantities slightly askew! Also the Passionfruit Curd I'd used had, instead of appearing in the topping in artistic swirls I'd hoped, been absorbed completely into the mix, couldn't really taste it either, maybe need to put more in next time, but was the end of the jar!!!
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