Ouzel Pretty Boy Then?

Friday continued the return to normality with a birding trip. This time I was whisked to the foot of Cissbury ring and, although the journey over was misty, and the temperature cool enough for gloves and woolly hat on the gentle ascent to the ancient hill fort on top of the South Downs, it was sunny and got hotter as the time moved on.

The reason for our visit was mainly to look for the elusive ring ouzel, which I had failed to see before at Newhaven. After wandering around a bit and looking at likely spots we came across a small group of people with 'scopes pointing in the same direction.


Following the line of sight it was clear we had found our quarry. He was obligingly sitting in good view and didn't seem inclined to move despite all the lenses pointing at him. I got some good views of him through my mentor's 'scope and took some pictures the clearest of which is here. This was a thrilling encounter for me and a life tick.

 We continued our wander in and around the earthwork of the second largest hill fort in the country and sat on a bench looking out over Worthing six hundred feet below to eat our picnic. By this time it was a glorious and hot sunny day and there and subsequently on a short walk round Beeding Brooks it became clear that I was extremely over-dressed. The gloves were long gone and the woolly hat exchanged for the "birding hat" with its geeky collection of bird badges. Ignoring the old adage "Cast ne'er a clout till may is out" I cast as many as I could without offending public decency. I'm not complaining but it isn't easy to dress for birding if you start off needing gloves and end up in shirtsleeves.

Other birds seen included chiff-chaff and willow warbler, buzzard, kestrel, linnet, jay, very bright yellowhammer, green woodpecker (in flight), blackcap, skylark, pheasant and the usual assortment of robins,tits and corvids. At the Brooks this time there was only a moorhen, mute swan and a couple of greylag geese so we didn't stay too long. We also saw some orange-tip and brimstone butterflies and numerous fat furry bees amongst the cowslips etc.

It was a beautiful day on top of the Downs and would have been very pleasant just to have a picnic there: The ring ouzel made it very special however.