On Sunday 14th November I met up with a few friends from our camera club to go and take some pictures of the autumn colours up on Okeford Hill. We headed over to Bonsley woods and as we did I noticed plenty of bird activity in the fields between the two woods I promised myself I would come back in a few days and spend some time seeing what was about. There were certainly more birds than I have seen about recently.
It was lovely in the woods the Beech leaves were a lovely colour, later this year and still holding on well. Also some fungi still looking good. We were lucky to find a clump of Porcelain Fungus in good condition and also the tiny little Candle snuff fungus only about 2cm in height.




So on Thursday 18th November I headed for Okeford Hill once again, on my own this time. I knew where I would go for the best chance to see some interesting birds. As always the track from the carpark to the hill always has a few different birds in the hedgerow, plenty of food for them at the moment. I spotted a Wren, Robin, Blue Tits and there was a small group of Long Tailed Tits, as always in a hurry! A Great Tit was rummaging in the dead leaves for food.



As I got to the edge of the wood I noticed a good sized flock of birds high up in the trees, hoping it was Fieldfares, the light was not too good but I managed to get a picture. They flew away and they gave their distinctive call as they did so, definitely Fieldfares. I saw quite a few small flocks a I wandered round the field.

I was pleased to spot a couple of male Stonechats as I wandered about and luckily they showed well on the bushes and fence. As I got round to the path near the trig point I spotted Yellowhammers, there were quite a few in the scrubby hedgerow and also feeding down in the arable field.





As I was walking round I could hear birds singing down in the crop and above, they were flocks of Skylarks, a different song to their spring/summer song when they rise high in the sky singing, but beautiful all the same.


There were quite a few flocks of small birds flying quickly across the fields, I managed to get some photos although not very special but I wanted to see if I could identify them on the computer when I got home. I thought Linnets, I put them on the UK Bird Identification Facebook page and many group members came back with the same conclusion as me, hopefully they may stay still for a better photograph one day!


It was a good couple of hours wandering, great to see so many species in a short time.