Spent the morning doing BTO atlas surveys near Over Wallop.
The day got off to an excellent start with 5 roadside Barn Owls seen en route to the survey square (this was in pitch darkness).
The surveying was good fun in freezing weather, and there were some pretty impressive sized flocks of Starlings, Thrushes, Wood Pigeons and Corvids.
Bird of the day was nearly "the one that got away"! I was on a footpath bordered by two walls of bushes, and just looked up to see what looked like a Male Hen Harrier drift overhead. It was gone before I'd even registered it, so I panicked, braced myself, and dived through a small hole in the hedge! Luckily my head emerged "Field-side" with various bits of me impaled on thorns, and I was treated to superb views of the Hen Harrier scrapping with a Juvenile Peregrine at fairly close range. Safe to say the Hen Harrier won! although I was surprised at the size of the Peregrine.. should have been a close match for the Harrier, but the Peregrine was squealing, and for once looked like a coward!
Was also good to see a couple of decent sized flocks of Golden Plover, about 200 in all, and a flock of Chaffinches in Palestine Village contained a good proportion of Brambling, although they were a few hundred metres outside my survey square.
Not sure where the Corn Buntings and Grey Partridges I have seen quite frequently in this area were, but hopefully I can pick them up on future surveys. Will post species totals if I can extract the data out of the BTO database. | 
