31st January - Cirl Bunting - Wicor Mill Lane, Portchester, Hampshire

On Christmas Eve a male Cirl Bunting was found in the scrub area at the bottom of Wicor Mill Lane in Portchester.  Family commitments around the holiday meant I couldn't try to see it until the 27th December.  On that day Ian and I spent at least three hours waiting and watching, but not managing to see the bird.  In fact it wasn't seen again until last Thursday morning when it was reported once more in the same spot, the assumption has to be that it never went away but was just very good at hiding in the scrub and around the paddocks.

So it was Ian and I were meeting up just after sun rise and were making our way along the same track we had walked just after Christmas.  The sun was rising away to the east and lighting up the sky over the Portsmouth sky line and harbour.

There were four Royal Navy frigates in the harbour, three seen here.  They are Montrose, Monmouth, Westminster and Argyll.  Unfortunately I can't be sure what the names of these three are.  The ships are either waiting to go to scrap, or for sale to countries like India or Brazil.  Today they were lit up buy the morning sunshine.

We walked around to the spot that the bunting seems to favour, but a couple of birders there hadn't seen the Cirl Bunting.  I had some information about where it had been seen, it liked the area around the pond, but also along the scrub on the west side of the pond.  Leaving the other birders staring at the scrub behind the pond we walked along the path and immediately found the Cirl Bunting.

Rubbish photographs but a record of the bird because almost immediately it flew off away across the path and into the scrub.  The Cirl Bunting was formerly a moderately common but locally distributed.  Today it is extinct as a breeding bird and there hasn't been any record since 1985.  This represents the status of this bird in the United Kingdom, with, since the eighties, small pockets of breeding birds in Devon.  

Work by the RSPB has seen these populations recover and thrive and consequently we have seen over the recent years an expansion from west to east.  This recent and fairly rapid spread of Cirl Buntings in Dorset from Devon has seen in 2019  one wintering bird. In 2023 two pairs bred and in 2024 there were 9 confirmed pairs as far east as Ballard Down, with a pair also breeding in Durlston last year.  It would now seem likely that further birds will be found in Hampshire and hopefully breeding and continuing the march across the south coast.

Back to this bird we then re-found it in the area behind the pond.  It appeared in the hawthorn bushes where there were Greenfinches and Redwing.  Again not the best image.

And it was hidden by the branches.

It then dropped to the ground and we assumed it was feeding on the grass seeds.  We waited knowing that it would reappear and it did coming up higher in the hawthorn bush.

Here it was preening and even some short snatches of song.

A shake of the feathers.

Then finally the best shot, just before it flew off towards the paddocks.

We walked towards the paddocks in the hope of re-finding it, but circumstances contrived to bring my day to an end.  I had to return to home to support my daughter, a sad situation.  But the day wasn't a failure, to get Cirl Bunting in Hampshire has been a long dream and it finally came true today and I managed to get one acceptable photograph.  Two county ticks in the week, not a bad end to January!