Sunday December 11 - "sounded rare"

 Some unexpected snow overnight made the drive to Morton Bagot rather more exciting than it usually is. My car slithered to a halt shortly after Dave had arrived, and we set out into some increasingly heavy snowfall.

As it's December we had no expectations of anything unusual, and were happy enough to see a Peregrine land on a pylon, and see a Stonechat (I think Dave saw two) the first for several weeks.

Peregrine

Stonechat

Redwings called as they left a tall hedge, and the Stonechats started tacking. Then we heard another call. It was a sharp, thin call, and immediately set the alarm bells ringing. I shouted "what's that?" and it called again. We scanned around in alarm. It called again, the same call. We could still see nothing. Was it flying over? We conferred and agreed it sounded rare. The call reminded me of Tree Pipit, but it's the middle of December. 

It called once more, but we still couldn't see it. We noticed five or six Meadow Pipits with some cattle, but they all looked and sounded like Meadow Pipits. After hanging around for fifteen minutes we heard no further calls, and decided to move on.

Fortunately this kind of thing almost never happens, but when it does, you are left with a feeling of a missed opportunity. Like England last night! 

The rest of the morning confirmed that the flashes were frozen and lifeless (apart from one Lapwing) and we ended up walking down the brook hoping for a miracle. In the event we flushed a "probable" Woodcock which rose steeply from the ground and away through the trees without either of us getting a decent view, and a first-winter Common Gull which was heading north.

We returned to the cattle field once I had grabbed my scope, and gave the mystery bird another go. All we added was a hunting Fox before the stockman arrived in a truck, setting the cattle off into a bout of excited mooing. 

The Fox

The Fox made a sharp exit, and after hearing nothing else to get us interested, so did we.