Up on the Downs

After another relatively quiet and migrant-free morning on the patch yesterday, Kate and I headed up to Kithurst and Chantry Hills on the South Downs above Storrington for an afternoon walk; one of my favourite downland spots in this area after The Burgh. Sadly, despite checking every fenceline and field, if there was a Wheatear or a Ring Ouzel up there then it did its level best to avoid us - there wasn't even a Chiffchaff to be found in the bushes.

On the plus side, it's good to be reminded that some of the classic farmland bird species are still hanging on here. Through the song of several Skylarks and flight calls of Yellowhammers I picked up the jangling keys tones of a Corn Bunting singing near the dew pond.

In autumn and winter there was a decent-sized flock in this area (up to fifty in late October), and now listening to one singing away with the Surrey Hills in plain sight to the north - a county in which the species hasn't been recorded as breeding since at least the mid-90s - I couldn't help but feel a sense of poignancy. For the time being, the Corn Bunting remains a feature of the Sussex countryside but with the fields on the Downs here already ploughed, sown and green with early wheat and winter oilseed rape, one can't but help ponder for how much longer.