Back to Priest Hill


The UK autumn may really have started several weeks ago (with failed or non-breeding adult waders moving through), but in ND&B land we have only just declared the season open! To be honest, once I start to see Harebells, Clustered Bellflowers and Common Toadflax flowering, and Copper Underwings and Flounced Rustics in the MV, then I know that the summer is starting to think about ushering in the autumn. In all reality, this seasonal thing is not straightforward, as they overlap, merge and share many aspects. Serves our right for trying to label and pigeon-hole everything.

Anyway, my sudden acceptance of all things 'autumn' has mainly been driven by my return to Priest Hill SWT Reserve. You may remember that I adopted it as a patch at the end of last autumn, and my time there has been gratefully rewarded, with such highlights as Cattle Egret, Woodcock, Jack Snipe, Common Snipe, many Red Kites, Peregrine, a good passage of Wheatear, Stonechat and Common Redstart, Ring Ouzel, Grasshopper Warbler and a wintering flock of Reed Bunting. I stopped regular observation there in mid-May, and started up again two days ago (25th) with three Willow Warblers being a good start. This morning was about a westerly passage of Swifts (150+), a handful of warblers (possibly all local breeders unlike the Willows), and a noisy feeding flock of 90 Goldfinches. A family party of Meadow Pipits were good to see, two of which are pictured above. A tidy start.

Comments

Derek Faulkner said…
Everywhere at the moment feels like early autumn, quite strange. But as I've commented before, I don't believe that we have four seasons any more, just a six month autumn and a six month spring/summer. The clearly defined four seasons that we had as children are long gone.
27 July 2017 at 14:57
Steve Gale said…
I think you have a valid point there Derek. A crying shame.
27 July 2017 at 15:08
Gibster said…
I've just realised you have a Long-tailed Blue as your banner pic. Nice! In the UK or overseas?
28 July 2017 at 19:31
Steve Gale said…
Dungeness, September 1st 2016. It flew in front of me after a rainstorm, landed, I took a snap and then it flew deep into cover and was not seen again. One of my natural history highlights.
28 July 2017 at 23:56
Steve Gale said…
Sorry Seth, that should be 2015
28 July 2017 at 23:58
Gibster said…
Brilliant, gotta love the shingle huh?
29 July 2017 at 01:11
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Goldfinches and Lavender

Image
We have three medium-sized Lavender bushes in our back garden. Throughout the summer the flowers (which last for several months) are a magnet for insects and give off a most restful aroma. As tempting as it is to cut the dead stems in the autumn, we always leave them, as we know that during the late winter we will get visitors to feed on the seed heads... This video was taken from the kitchen window this morning. We will normally see one or two birds over a few days, but have had up to 14 at once. We never tire of watching them. Lavender is a wonderful plant to have in the garden, with year round natural history benefits. So what are you waiting for? They are readily available at a garden centre close to you right now! There is an historic association with Lavender in this part of northern Surrey and south London. Lavender fields have been harvested for many years, with one particular field close to Woodmansterne being very popular with day trippers. A significant proportion o...
Read more

Welcome back!

Image
In November 2005 I purchased a pair of Swarovski 10x42 EL binoculars from The London Camera Exchange shop in Guildford, for the then princely sum of £899. These bins have served me well, with almost daily use in all types of weather, testing their durability to the maximum - salt water spray, deluges of rain, 38C temperatures, dust, dirt, slight knocks... and apart from the armour coating that had started to bubble and come away from the body, nothing to be alarmed about. Then, in the summer of 2022, I noticed that I had a problem when close focusing - the outer focusing wheel would lose grip and it would take me an age to regain a middle-ground distance of focus - plus, over the next few weeks this outer focusing wheel became loose. I resorted to the use of tape to keep it all in place, but realised that I had to do something about it in the long run. For a while I did consider buying a new pair - after all, they were then 17-years old - but they were still optically superb. It seemed...
Read more

A special day

In birding, timing can mean the difference between an average day in the field and that of a spectacular one. Good timing can be helped by reading the weather conditions correctly, or understanding local conditions but it is more often down to pure luck. In this case, I just got lucky... I had not visited Dungeness since March 2022, quite a gap for me. It was high time that I once more trod the shingle and my timing of a visit was down to several factors, mostly a personal liking for mid-late autumn but also because I needed to be at home until September 20th and could not make the journey south until then. I also chose to stay at the bird observatory for a few days rather than make it a day trip. All this conveniently found me stepping outside the observatory's back door in the breaking dawn of Sunday 22nd September, quickly making my way to the fishing boats, an area I prefer to stand to best appreciate any visible bird migration, an aspect of birding that I find exhilarating.  A...
Read more