<\/span> <\/p>\nAlong the valley floor you can see Balsdean Farm, the only mark of what is locally known as the 'lost village'. 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. The land is a mix of uncultivated downland and farmland. The patchwork is archetypical of the South Downs. 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. 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. No more cubs on the trailcam last night, but I'm hopeful they'll be more footage in the coming weeks (and – I hope – photos. I want photos!)
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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":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t