A bright almost calm evening as I arrived on the western end of Soil Hill to do an hour of sky watching.
The skies were quiet so I decided to scour the hill instead although it didnt look promising with only 5 Meadow Pipits in the usually busy goose field.
The summit of the hill is bone dry like the desert with very little vegetation and showed no sign of bird life, what a contrast to previous years before it got destroyed with the diggers.
One Skylark was up singing and a few mipits flying round otherwise the area was void of birds. At the eastern end in the trig point field I managed 1 Wheatear and that was it. Usually the hill is crawling with Wheatear at this time and even though there is a general shortage of Wheatears this spring I cant, help but think that the disturbance and alteration of the shape of the hill has taken away that magnetic pull for the birds. Maybe given time it will return to its former glory?
As it is at the moment the only thing going for the hill is the elevated vantage point overlooking the Causeway Foot col and the amazing 360 deg view during visible migration times .
Target birds for morning... Swift, Common Scoter, Wigeon, Bar Tailed Godwit. Think big !
BS