A skylark squatting in the grass

Woodpeckers and I drove across the valley up to Minchinhampton Common as I wanted try to both hear and photograph some skylarks. The unseasonably sunny weather has begun to break and there was much more cloud cover, while up on the high common between the valleys the fresh breezes were rather cold.

After parking in the middle of the common a lot of other people had come to walk and many were playing with their children.

I only had to walk a hundred yards to stand on the rough grassland and hear skylarks singing high above. Helena is still feeling ‘under the weather’ so she walked over to a clump of small trees where she could sit at their base for a bit of protection from the wind.

I watched skylarks flying above un til I spotted one dropping towards the ground and then noted where it landed. I walked slowly towards the spot and eventually found where it was sheltering on this clump of much greener and slightly taller grass.

I slowly moved nearer over a period of about five minutes. The skylark knew I was there but didn’t seem too perturbed. My blip is one of the last pictures when it tried to sit down in the grass for camouflage. The other two ‘extras’ are from when I first saw it standing up on the grass. You can just see the slightly raised crest. I don’t know what it signifies when it is fully raised which you only see occasionally.

On a warmer day I will try to get better pictures of it in its varied stages of flight, flying across the ground just a few feet in the air, ascending and then descending, which all seem to have differing characteristics.