Saturday, August 18, 2012
Bury Down
Back to our old stomping ground today for a walk of about 14 kilometres. A bird launching itself from a bush just along the Ridgeway from the car park was identified by Greger as a sparrowhawk. And looking through the bins I could see he was right.
Turning onto the bridleway to West Ilsley, we encountered about a dozen meadow pipits skipping about in the bushes. Meanwhile I was frantically scanning the hawthorns along the side of the sheep field for redstarts as we walked. Yes! There was a bird dropping down into the grass and then flying back up into the low branches. As usual it was very distant. I watched through the bins and could see the lovely flash of orange as the bird flew up.
Slogging up the Catmore lane I spotted what I first thought was a small dog at the crest of the road, bounding towards us. It was a hare. It loped down the hill until it saw us and then disappeared up the grassy bank to the right. It was probably escaping from the harvesting that was under way in fields to the left of the road.
Further along the road, large numbers of goldfinches, chaffinches and bullfinches were feeding out in the stubble. Otherwise it was, bird-wise, fairly quiet.
// posted by Christine @ 10:37 AM 
