4.55.—Hear another bird fly by. No cry. Think it was a Plover.
Then come 1, 3 (it is now 5 o'clock), 3, 2 (peculiar cry close by me. I think a Great Plover. If so it is a new note—at least, newly noted. Like cry of Moor-hen, but tone of Plover. Sudden, trumpety), 2, 3, 2.
5.10.— 1, 1. (Great noise of Partridges.)
Very cold as the morning breaks; a hoar-frost on fern and heather. A mist hanging over the earth.
5.25.—There has been since 5.15, and still continues to be, a great noise of Partridges all about, and now great trumpeting of Pheasants.
5.35.—No more Great Plovers up till now, and yet the morning flight home must have ceased. Only twenty birds, therefore, as against forty-nine on September 26th. Yet I now command all points, and find it difficult to imagine that any great number can have flown up without my seeing them, or at least hearing the wings. A search with the glasses, however, reveals twenty-eight birds amongst the heather—as many, or more, as I could count one morning when there were a great number concealed in it. As I heard the ground-note of the birds, first some way off, and then much nearer, probably in the place itself, it seems as if some of them had walked, or rather run, home.
Wren hopping cheerfully about the frosty bracken.
Pheasants making a great noise and seem very active, which has not been the case on previous mornings. May have relation to the frost and mist.
Have now walked to my other post by the plateau.
A mist lies over everything, obscuring the sun. This seems to affect the Peewits (probably birds generally). No Peewits seen till 6.40. Then only two, flying, who soon go down. Later a small flock go past, but, from then till returning home about 8, I see no more. An entire absence of the joyous circling in the higher air which on the previous fine bright mornings I had seen.
No Starlings (I think).
Song of the Lark not heard till 7.
Note of Great Green Woodpecker at 6.45, but had heard it, I think, a little before.
