As it was a nice day for a local walk I managed to resist the temptation of the car and walked along Kingsdown Road to the foot path that takes you onto Bockhill Farm. I was surprised that I hadn't seen or heard a Skylark in the first twenty minutes of walking.
When I got to the large stubble field, still with bales of straw over it, I heard the call of a Skylark and walked a short way into the field.
Suddenly the air was full of Skylark calls and somewhere around 200-300 birds rose up and noisily circled round before landing further out into the field. I somehow managed to over expose the pictures of them in the air, but the 48 splodges in the picture above are each one of the Skylarks in this small section of the flock. Stubble is a wonderful for hiding small birds and they vanished as soon as they landed.
There were a few Meadow Pipits around, and they often sat up on the straw, these four were spaced out like the hour marks on a clock.
In one weedy area there was a flock of one hundred or so Linnets, with the odd one or two Goldfinches mixed in.
They were feeding on the seed heads of what I think was Fat Hen, and again they mostly disappeared from view when they were on the ground.
Some decided for a better view and the Meadow Pipits were soon displaced when the Linnets arrived en-mass.
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