Stone Curlews at Palestine

The weather was cloudy and fairly mild. Highlights were Stone Curlew, Grey Partridge, Fieldfare, Wheatear and Yellowhammer.

A fairly early start saw us gather on a farm track just east of Porton Down. As people were arriving we heard and then saw 2 Grey Partridge in the field by the track and they gave good views through the telescope. Skylarks sang overhead and were in fact singing for most of the time on this walk. We set off along the track towards the chalk grassland on the MoD land. Several thrushes flew up into trees from a field, several Fieldfare and a few Redwing. We saw a lot more Fieldfare and a few Redwing in fields beside the track a little further up. A Yellowhammer sang from a tree and another further along the path. We saw several on the walk singing on bushes and feeding among haystacks in one of the fields. We got to the edge of the MoD land and walked up the path. Scanning the fields we saw Rooks and 5 Wheatear in one field. The next field has a specially constructed scrape and at first glance we saw several Stock Dove feeding on it. With careful scanning we picked out a single Stone Curlew standing in the middle. We watched this for a while before moving down the path in the hope of bumping into Corn Buntings. No luck with that but we did scan through a flock of gulls and picked out Lesser Black-backed and Common Gull among the Black-headed. We also saw 3 Buzzard circling while we looked at several Yellowhammer feeding by a haystack. On the way back to the cars we saw more Fieldfare and Redwing in fields by the track.

Simon Curson