Today I was out at Ashdown forest, a place I hope to visit more in the future. My target were the heath land birds that inhabit the heath, species such as Stonechat, Redstart and Dartford warbler. It took a little time finding the birds, but I ended up in a small open patch of heath surrounded by bracken. The first birds to show were a family of Stonechats as well as rouge males trying to muscle in on the dominant males territory. A male redstart was also a nice surprise and was seen hanging around with the Stonechats. And I finally saw a Willow warbler that put in a brief appearance. To photograph the Stonechats I had to put the tripod legs on there shortest length and splay them out so that I was low in the heather, and soon enough they would perch close by. It was fairly easy to know were they would land as they would usually perch on lengths of heather which stuck out above the sea of purple.
