Corn Buntings on Steyning Round Hill

The call of a Corn Buntings is one of the things we tend to associate with warm summer days and so hearing them on the Downs on a cold winters day reminds us that summer will return - eventually.  We had driven up to Steyning Round Hill to walk along to Chanctonbury and take advantage of a bright, clear, cold morning before the weather returned to wet and windy.  There were at least four of them, plump and heavy-billed in comparison to the Yellowhammers and Reed Buntings they were associating with.  The Reed Buntings caused me the usual head-scratching.  They were female/immature birds and so lacked the distinctive black and white markings of the adult summer male and they seem so out of context.  They should be down on the Brooks - not up here on the ploughed fields!

Where the path down towards Findon splits off the South Downs Way there is a strip of woodland.  Two Buzzards were perched in Hawthorn trees on the edge.  The darker of the two sat still, while the paler one, restless, flew up and down along the edge of the field, returning to perch near its mate several times.  Later, on our return, we saw a Buzzard, possibly the darker of the two, being mobbed by crows nearby.

Nearing Chanctonbury a Peregrine flew over, circled  around us and then headed south.  Then there was a Kestrel hanging quite motionless on the updraft from Well Bottom.  For long periods it hardly seemed to need to flick a feather to remain motionless and hold its station.  No other bird has that skill.

Now that all the leaves are down it is possible to see the full extent of the growth of new trees planted to replace those blown down by the Great Storm of 1987.  There is a way to go yet, but they are making progress.