Patchwork

Today we paid another visit to  the area near Hurst, that we have discovered during the lockdown, we have visited a few times now and have decided that this is going to be our official Patch. Now for my non-birding friends a patch in birding terms ,is an area that a birder visits on a regular basis throughout the year to record what's there, ideally this should be near their place of residence, now I have never really had a patch before as I've never really known of an area close to home that has enough variation in habitat to keep me interested, in that it  has the potential to produce some interesting birds throughout the year, well after the first few visits I'm am fairly confident this area has it, Thick hedges, a small river, several acres of meadows, some Farmland ,a bit of scrub some patches of mature trees, some small lakes, and a Churchyard with some mature Yews in it and the birds seen so far in the couple of visits we have made suggests it could be good, we will see, I will try to visit every couple of weeks which as it's only a couple of miles  from home, should reduce my road miles, thus boosting my green credentials!
The best bird of today's visit was a Spotted Flycatcher ,however I made the rookie error of going for the Bins first ,which gave me a good view of it ,but by the time I'd sorted the camera it had exited stage left never to be seen again , despite my vigorous searching of the area hopefully it will stick in the area and I will get it next time!!
At this point I will apologise for the quality of todays pics, was a really grey day and I've had to lighten the hell out of em to get any detail!!
We arrived at the parking space, could hear Whitethroat, Skylark and Yellowhammer while I was putting me boots on which was nice ,the first part of the walk is round the edge of a field ,where a wide  margin has been left for flowers, a male Yellowhammer was sat on a wire and posed ok for pics.

Field Margin Flowers

Male Yellowhammer

Once out of the field and across the track , the footpath opens up into a wide glade surrounded each side by thick hedges, the path meanders through stands of Nettles, Campion and other stuff I don't know the name of ,plenty of birds can be heard here and although it's get a bit late in the season we heard Chiffchaffs and the odd snatch of Blackcap song.

Glade

Chiffchaff mid Chiff or possibly Chaff

Interesting plant

Margie at this point is busy taking pictures of bugs while I have various attempts to take pics of  a Buzzard, we had Buzzards at various points along the walk, not sure if the same one or different but would suggest at least two maybe three different birds

Buzzard Lightened to death

Meadow Brown possibly?

Speckled Wood (by Margie)

Possibly Harlequin Ladybird  (by Margie)

Ladybird (by Margie)

Hoverfly (by Margie)

Don't know what these are but will probably be having nightmares about them tonight 

                                                                                   (by Margie)

At this point ,I should point out that while Margie loves bugs and taking pictures of them , they tend to like biting her, on our last walk here she received a bite on the hand that required antibiotics to treat it and at various locations around the country she has been bitten to death by various nasties, she claims this is because she is so sweet and I'm not brave enough to disagree!! Now I feel this is a small price to pay to be in the wonder of nature, although I acknowledge that it's easy for me to say, when I'm not the one paying!!

Further along the track the path opens out into the meadow type areas dotted with trees and bushes and today we spent pretty much the rest of the time in this area wandering the various paths taking pictures of anything we came across, highlights included a male Great Spotted Woodpecker, with a young'un, a very feisty Wren (love these guys a few grams of attitude), several Chiffchaffs, Whitethroats, Nuthatches , a Kestrel , several Swallows, a Green Woodpecker, the aforementioned Spot Fly and numerous bugs ,including the first Marbled White Butterfly we've seen this year.

Skipper?

Male Great Spotted Woodpecker

Wren letting everyone know he's about

Marbled White Butterfly

Kestrel (Record Shot)

Chaffinch

GSW with offspring

Chiffchaff

The Patch (by Margie)

The Patch (by Margie)

The Patch (by Margie)

After a happy couple of hours wandering about we retraced our steps the Yellowhammer was still on the wire his Missus had joined him, more Buzzards including one that burst out of the hedge just in front of us ,nearly giving me a heart attack!! It was so close i couldn't get it all in with my big lens ,although Margie's smaller lens came into it's own and she managed an excellent picture, although my "oo-er missus" reply to her smug ,I managed to get it all in comment wasn't that well received  😊😅😅😅 I can't help it i try to be politically correct but was raised on a tv diet of Benny Hill and Are You Being Served? Sometimes it just slips out!!😇😇😇oh no it's happened again! See I can't help it!! Luckily we had reached the car this point and I was able to escape the full withering glance with only minor damage!!

Buzzard close encounter (by Margie)

Female Yellowhammer

Final Buzzard Goodbye

This ,by the damage to the wing,seems to be a different Buzzard to the close encounter bird.

So that's the Patch will try to get there regularly ,every couple of weeks or so at different times of day ,although I am notoriously fickle at sticking to things like this!! But I will defo be back after that Spot Fly one evening next week!!

All pics by me unless otherwise stated.

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Twitching Time (and also cake time!!)

So twitching for my non-birding friends , is the act of going to see a specific bird, usually a rare bird, in a specific place rather than just going out for a days general birding. Today the bird in question was a Red-footed Falcon which had been knocking around the Downs north of Shoreham for a few days, at this point ,it's probably best to point out that I'm not a very keen Twitcher, a keen Twitcher would have gone on the first or second day, however what with work etc I decided to wait for the weekend, I have seen Red-footed Falcon on three previous occasions so took the risk!! Amazing how many times a bird is found on a Monday, stays all week while I'm stuck at work, then buggers off on Friday!
So what is a Red-footed Falcon? I hear you ask, well the clue is in the name a small Falcon with red feet!! They are migratory, breeding I believe in Eastern Europe/Asia having spent the winter in Africa. In Britain we get a few every year as they wander off course, todays bird, is a first summer Male, meaning last years youngster, non-breeding bird. There has been a bit of an influx this year possibly due to the southerly winds we have enjoyed this spring.
 In general, Margie doesn't enjoy twitching as it can involve long periods of time standing around waiting for the target bird to appear, but she decided to come this morning to get a bit of exercise and some fresh air ,we managed to get away reasonably early and arrived at Beeding Hill car park at approximately 6.15 AM  and pretty soon we were yomping along the Monarch  Way , the only thing of note was the Moon and the sound of Skylarks which were all around us!!

The Moon

Now the walk from the carpark to the site, is usually full of anxiety, will it be there, will we get there in time,  will Margie hurry up (to be fair she was ready at the car before me and leading the way) the tendency is to walk too quickly thus discovering how unfit you are and having to wait to get your breath back, (I have been known to run though this doesn't usually end well) although on this occasion I managed to set a constant pace we breasted the crest of the hill to see a small group of birders looking out over the field, first question "is it showing" the answer "it's on the fence post"" Hurrah!!!! Success the bird was indeed on the fence post and not that far away!!

Red-footed Falcon

And again!!

We then spent a happy half an hour taking far to many pictures and watching this charismatic bird, although to be honest it didn't really do much , chased a Kestrel off, had a couple of aerial duels with Corvids, flew down off the posts a couple of times to pounce on prey, presumably Grasshoppers or the like, it hovered a couple of times ,but frustratingly never really came close enough for good pictures and also rather annoyingly the sun spent most of the time behind a cloud ,which was a shame as the position the bird was ideal to be lit up nicely!!

Fencepost Hopping

Hovering 

What you looking at

As we watched it got into a particular nasty altercation with a Jackdaw and disappeared high in to the sky appearing to drop down in the far distance behind a copse of trees, Margie having spent the last 20 minutes taking pictures of flowers, including pretty much every stage of a poppy flowers life cycle, (see pics below) suggested continuing down the path for a while to see if anything else was about.

The Copse the RFF disappeared behind! (by Margie)

Poppy (by Margie)

Poppy (by Margie)

Poppy (by Margie)

Poppy (by Margie)

Poppy (by Margie)

Poppy (by Margie)

So we headed further along the path, although not that much to show for it a couple of distant, Hares, more Skylarks a couple of Mipits so we turned and started to head back up the hill, we hadn't gone more than ten yards when I spotted a bird flying towards us, got to be a Peregrine I said , a quick squint through the Bins proved me correct and managed a few shots as it flew right over our heads!

Peregrine Falcon

Peregrine Falcon

Not bad ,including the Kestrel that was 3 Falcons before 8 o'clock. We re-joined the assembled birders, social distancing was pretty well maintained whilst we were there, but the bird hadn't reappeared so we decided to head back to the car, a very pleasant, very different to the anxious semi-trot of earlier, walk in bright sunshine and blue skies , I spent some trying to get pics of the Skylarks without much success, a Woodpigeon posed nicely on a pallet and a Meadow Pipit sat patiently on a post while I failed to get a decent shot of it, Margie spent the time taking pictures of plants ,sheep and Snail shells!! We saw several birders heading towards the RRF site, but I resisted uttering the dreaded "You should of been here 10 minutes ago" (the worst sentence in birding).

Skylark

Patient Meadow Pipit

Woodpigeon

Flower (By Margie)

Flower (By Margie)

Snail Shell, she's obsessed with em! (By Margie)

Flower (By Margie)

Flower (By Margie)

Sheep (By Margie)

While I put my shoes on by the car Margie took some nice scenery shots of the view from up there which is quite spectacular

On arrival home in order to celebrate our success, I made a Chocolate Victoria sponge which i jazzed up a bit with some butter icing made from a big dollop of Chocolate/Hazelnut spread which came out quite well although the sponge is a tad dry, but luckily there is so much cream it's not really noticeable.

Ready for the oven

All cooked

Cooling down

Put together

A very enjoyable Twitch and Cake!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!