What's this? Blue sky, sunshine and I'm not at work😲!! Unbelievable, with this rare set of events, which only seems to occur once a millennium😂, I decided to head to the Downs in search of Buntings, as I've not seen a Cornie this year and they are one of me favs. I arrived at my chosen location before seven, good effort at my time of life, and headed out. Along the track I bumped into an enthusiastic young Birder, depressingly he's only been Birding for a year and he's already better at calls than I am😢!! So we continued on together, a pretty good walk to be honest, loads of Corn Bunting seen, at least twenty but probably more, singing Skylarks, Meadow Pipits doing display flights, several Stonechats, Linnets including a large flock, maybe 200 birds, seen distantly, several Goldfinch, a showy Kestrel, Blackbirds, Wrens, Dunnocks and of course Robins! As the day heated up, I was regretting the thermal sweatshirt and gilet under me winter coat, but the heat brought out the Buzzards and Red Kites though sadly they didn't come close enough for decent pics!
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| Friendly face |
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| Blackbird |
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| Goldfinch |
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| Stonechat |
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| Goldfinch in Gorse |
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| Corn Bunting |
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| Love to hear em singing, my favourite Bird song, Margie says it's only my favourite because it's the only one I recognise!! 😲😲 |
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| Stonechat |
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| Song Thrush |
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| Stonechat |
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| Kestrel |
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| Seemed to be pouncing on stuff in the grass, couldn't see what! |
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| By the half way point I'd walked so far I was nearly back to where I'd started Hurstpierpoint Church! |
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| Stonechat |
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| Kestrel |
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| Meadow Pipit |
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| What's that? More Corn Buntings please? Ok then! |
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| Stonechat |
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| Stonechat |
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| Linnet |
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| Buzzard |
Ok, well if you have made it this far, then I'm guessing you are the sort of hard core, blog reader who can be trusted with the following pictures, the actual reason I chose the location was to see if Sussex's returning Cirl Bunting had returned! It had and was singing it's heart out! Obviously oblivious for the need for secrecy!! To be honest I feel suppressing this bird is fairly bogus, it's on a well used footpath, passed by numerous joggers and dog walkers and it obviously survived the first year when it was a major visitor attraction. Now in it's 3rd year, chances of it actually acquiring a mate seem sadly remote and even if it did presumably any egg collectors know about the expanding population in Devon. But there you go anyway it's performing well, try not to kill it if you go!!
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| Pretty distant to start with! |
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| Singing well, a bird with the uncanny ability to hide behind the smallest twigs |
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| He came down on the ground several times |
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| By 10.30 it had more or less stopped singing and was mainly lurking in the bushes! |
It's a cracking little bird, fingers crossed a female turns up, or it gets it on with a tone deaf Yellowhammer😲!! Seems like he deserves a little action with the effort he puts in!! Nice to meet one of the next generation of birders, I was able to impart loads of wisdom and encouragement, so he probably went home and chucked his bins in rubbish!!😂😂😂😂😂😂
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