{"id":1866,"date":"2011-03-06T23:03:40","date_gmt":"2011-03-06T23:03:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/archives\/1866"},"modified":"2013-11-09T18:09:19","modified_gmt":"2013-11-09T18:09:19","slug":"south-downs-corn-buntings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/south-downs-corn-buntings\/","title":{"rendered":"South Downs Corn Buntings"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

I recently posted about the red listed status of the (almost) ubiquitous herring gull. Today I cam across a much more fragile inhabitant of the South Downs, the corn bunting. These small field dwellers have seen a drastic decline in recent years, mainly due to habitat changes and new farming methods. I'd been following a small flock of yellowhammers (they're related) and I'll begin the photographic journal with those.
<\/span> A flock of yellowhammers<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span> Yellowhammer<\/span><\/p>\n

I continued along the path. Sheep were grazing, and lambs were nestling down in the fields.
<\/span> <\/p>\n

<\/span> <\/p>\n

It was on my way back that I came across another flock. I was facing the sun, and at first thought it was another group of yellowhammers.
<\/span> Flock of corn buntings<\/span><\/p>\n

Closer inspection revealed that I was wrong. They were corn buntings (though I needed to check the identification back at home as this is an entirely new sighting for me).
<\/span> Corn buntings<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span> <\/p>\n

<\/span> A tight crop<\/span><\/p>\n

And a slightly dodgy shot of them taking to the air…
<\/span><\/p>\n

Back in the garden, I heard positive evidence<\/a> that cubs are in the vicinity (you may need to open that file to hear it… I haven't figured out how to embed it in the page). They can't be far away, and from the sound of them they may already be a few weeks old (which would make them early season births). The noise started up shortly after a fox carrying some food (not from our garden) had rushed past me. He was too quick for an identification, but a few minutes later Shutterbug did make an appearance and was certainly keeping an ear open.
<\/span> <\/p>\n

<\/span>
\"Nature<\/a><\/span>
Camera note: all daytime shots taken with the Canon 7D and EF 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L USM IS lens. The fox was photographed with the EF70-300mm 4.5-5.6 DO IS lens.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[980,4,1004],"tags":[701,1128,135,471],"class_list":["post-1866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birds-2","category-foxes","category-south-downs-national-park-landscape-2","tag-corn-bunting","tag-fox","tag-sheep","tag-yellowhammer","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1866\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}