{"id":2577,"date":"2013-04-20T23:04:13","date_gmt":"2013-04-20T22:04:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/archives\/2577"},"modified":"2013-11-01T22:47:11","modified_gmt":"2013-11-01T22:47:11","slug":"a-walk-at-castle-hill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/a-walk-at-castle-hill\/","title":{"rendered":"A Walk at Castle Hill"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->It looked beautiful out today, and that&#39;s about the first time I&#39;ve been able to say that in too long a while. There was still a bit of nip in the air, but it was an ideal day for a walk along the top of Castle Hill, a local nature reserve.<\/p>\n<p>It was quiet on the wildlife front. A distant buzzard, numerous magpies, a lone linnet and some invisible skylarks (but they have an unmistakeable call). So I focused on the views. This was near the start of the walk. The hills are decked in an archipelago of gorse. <br \/><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/castle_hill_2004130224.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p>Along the valley floor you can see Balsdean Farm, the only mark of what is locally known as the &#39;lost village&#39;. There was originally a small hamlet here, but it was evacuated and used as target practice during the Second World War. Nothing of the hamlet remains.<br \/><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/castle_hill_2004130251.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p>The land is a mix of uncultivated downland and farmland. The patchwork is archetypical of the South Downs.<br \/><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/castle_hill_2004130282.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p>The one true wildlife moment was seeing a fight between two crows. I was a long way off, but even from a distance it seemed quite vicious.<br \/><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/1crow_fight_2004130423.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p>Eventually a third crow intervened and drive the aggressor away. The victim recovered quickly enough and is the bird furthest to the right in this shot.<br \/><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/crow_fight_2004130436.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p>No more cubs on the trailcam last night, but I&#39;m hopeful they&#39;ll be more footage in the coming weeks (and &#8211; I hope &#8211; photos. I want photos!)<br \/><span class=\"aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/natureblognetwork.com\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/natureblognetwork.com\/button.php?u=Words\" width=\"0\" height=\"0\" alt=\"Nature Blog Network\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/span><br \/><a title=\"site stats\" href=\"http:\/\/statcounter.com\/free-web-stats\/\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/c.statcounter.com\/7187219\/0\/2c644058\/1\/\" alt=\"site stats\" style=\"border:none;\" \/><\/a><br \/><i>Camera note: all shots taken with the Canon 7D and EF 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L USM 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":[1003,1004],"tags":[590,44,94],"class_list":["post-2577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-landscape-2","category-south-downs-national-park-landscape-2","tag-castle-hill","tag-crow","tag-south-downs","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2577","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=2577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2577\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}