Hampshire bound for Ortolan Bunting

Ortolan Bunting

Ortolan Bunting

Portsdown Hill

Ortolan Bunting

Ortolan Bunting

Waders scrape

Farlington Marsh

Redshank

Since my interest widened to see rarer birds that visit the UK the opportunity to see an Ortolan Bunting has been minimal or none. It's propably no concidence that the population in Europe has dropped by 84% since 1980. It's reported 30,000 are trapped every Autumn when the species migrate from eastern europe over France to west Africa.

On Friday, news emerged that a bunting had settled on the downs above Portsmouth in Hampshire. I kept half an eye on the sightings and as day continued the sightings became even more regular. In all honestly I thought the bird would probably move on overnight but I was pleasantly surprised to see an earlt report on Twitter on Saturday morning with a photo. This was good enough for me to punch the postcode in the Satnav & head south.

The good thing about heading that way is that it's all motorway or dual carridgeway making it a very smooth drive. I opted away from the reported lane and walk the ten minutes back to Pigeon House Lane. I passed plenty of happy birders on the way down the lane despite the lack on reports on RBA.

As I set my scope up the locals were very friendly pointing out where the bird had been favouring. A very patient forty minutes was tough going with only a Buzzard, Chiffchaff, Blackcap & two House Martins to view.

The bunting was appartently feeding low in the stubble although it was doing a good job of staying that way. Then as per the locals forcast the Ortolan duly flew on top of the hawthorn bush that was full of berries making it a very pretty sight. The bird was larger than I expected but sat very still enabling me to scope it well to see the birds features. I even managed to take few nice shots that I was pleased with given the distance. 

From here I headed to nearby Farlington Marsh where I had not visited before. Plenty of waders including Redshank, Black-tailed Godwits & Dunlin on view in some stunning sunshine before I headed back to Feckenham for the last cricket game of the season that saw the Millers reach the Worcestershire Premier League next season.