Kev @kev07713 and I headed up to Milk Hill on the Pewsey Downs, hoping to hear the distinctive call of a quail or catch sight of a stone-curlew, both of which we’d connected with at this spot last year. We waited patiently, ears tuned, but the quails remained silent, and the field that previously held stone-curlews was now cloaked in crops, making viewing impossible.
Still, the Downs were far from quiet. The air was alive with the songs of corn buntings, skylarks, meadow pipits, and whitethroats. Corn buntings, in particular, were present in good numbers, perching on posts, crop stems, and scrub. A few came in close enough for decent photos, though I suspect I’ve already got more than enough shots of them for this spring.
The whitethroats also perched prominantly and sang, constantly drawing our attention, moving around us and onto the crops in front of us as if checking us out.
Kev’s ears were definitely tuned in - he suddenly stopped and said he’d heard the distant reeling of a grasshopper warbler. It took me a moment, but then I caught it too. When we finally pinned down its location, the bird turned out to be much farther off than we’d thought. It was just visible, low in some sparse scrub and grass. After a minute or two, it hopped up onto a taller stem, offering decent views, but only through the scope.
The far side of the crop field runs along a public footpath, so I looped around the edge and made my way over to roughly where the bird had been showing. I crouched down and waited, watching corn buntings dart around the scrubby margins.
About ten minutes later, Kev joined me and, in doing so flushed a hare down the path toward me. I held still, not lifting my camera, hoping not to spook it. The hare came quite close before suddenly clocking me and veering off sharply into the crop, disappearing from view.
We waited and listened. Eventually, the grasshopper warbler began reeling again. Kev spotted it perched low on a green shrub — he’d noted it earlier and thought it looked like just the sort of place a 'gropper' might choose to sing from. He crept back up the slope to where his scope was set up to get a better view. I followed, edging back toward his position, which offered a clearer angle for photos. The bird reeled for a while, then unexpectedly flew towards us and into the crop — perhaps curious about the watchers on the field's edge.
We made our way back to the top of the slope and restarted our listening for quail - still nothing. Behind us a kestrel that had been hovering was moved on by a couple of guys paragliding. Paragliding on Milk Hill apparently offers some of the finest ridge-soaring in southern England. As Wiltshire's highest point (295m), the hill catches reliable winds and delivers long, smooth flights over the rolling chalk downs, with views over the Vale of Pewsey and beyond. I'm told it is a favourite spot for both seasoned pilots and beginners alike.
The fabric "wing" that inflatess to create lift and allow flight was a brilliant yellow against the still grey sky.
After patiently waiting in vain for a quail to call, we decided to move on to Salisbury Plain in hopes of seeing great bustards, an annual tradition we like to slot into the calendar. We pulled up at our usual spot and began scanning the hillside where we’ve often found them in the past. But after thirty minutes of careful searching, there was still no sign. How do you lose the world’s heaviest flying birds?
While the bustards remained elusive, Kev picked up another grasshopper warbler singing somewhere out in front of us, though out of sight. Way off to the left, I spotted a whinchat perched neatly atop a bush - a cracking little bird, but only visible through the scope. Corn buntings continued to come and go, and a pair of kestrels were hunting along the ridge.
Eventually, we jumped back in the car and drove round to get a view from the opposite side of the slope. Almost as soon as we stopped, we spotted six great bustards lumbering their way up the hill, moving steadily away from us. We managed a few photos and some video before they crested out of view, though by then the rising heat haze was making things increasingly difficult.
These birds are great to see as they have an amazing story on Salisbury Plain where they have been reintroduced after almost two centuries of absence in the UK - were extinct by the 1830s. Their reintroduction began in 2004 using birds initially from Russia and Spain. Bustard males can weigh up to 18kg and have a wingspan of up to 2.4m. These are fully wild, breeding, and largely self-sustaining birds, and one of the most successful reintroductions in British conservation.
The Plain is ideal as it is the largest remaining chalk grassland in northwest Europe. The area is surrounded by MOD training land making sure large areas are undisturbed and protected. Indeed, an MOD vehicle stopped and the squaddy lingered to talk to us - a very pleasant chap, but no doubt checking out what we were up to.
We spotted another male bustard in the distance and decided to press on for a closer look. Although this bird was nearer, the heat haze was now in full swing, making viewing tricky. As we scanned the area, we picked out another male and a female, bringing our total for the visit to around 15 individuals.
We stopped at a site where we’d had a tip-off that stone-curlews might be showing, but despite a solid half-hour of scanning, we couldn’t find a single one. We gave it a little longer before admitting defeat and deciding to try our luck at RSPB Winterbourne Down instead.
On arrival, we bumped into a birder named Chris, who we’d last seen a few weeks back at Wildlife BCN's Summer Leys. We began our search and made our way to the first screen, only to find that the usual ploughed patch, a reliable spot for stone-curlews, had been reduced. The viewing distance was long, and the heat haze didn’t help.
Frustrated, I figured it was worth checking further up the track and behind a line of trees, while Kev stayed put. But everywhere I looked offered the same distant strip of broken ground, and overall, there seemed to be far less suitable habitat than on previous visits. I headed back to Kev, still empty-handed.
We gave it another 15 minutes, then another — but eventually had to admit the birds weren’t playing ball today. Despite missing out on the stone-curlews, it had been a good day out birding all the same.
Year list: 205.
