A morning “birding” walk to the back of Battlesbury Hill, to an area known as the “Battlesbury Bowl” on the edge of Salisbury Plain.
I followed my hunch that this area might be somewhere to find the Lesser Whitethroat, which I’ve failed to see on three occasions now; at Knepp in 2025 where I heard it but didn’t see it, and this year on Salisbury Plain near The Bustard where I heard it but didn’t see it, and again at the same Bustard site where I neither heard it or saw it.
This time, I heard it several times with the help from the Merlin App, and eventually saw it calling from within a thicket and flitting across the “army road” before singing again. What a difficult bird this is to spot! The other nice surprise was a calling Grasshopper Warbler, which I was also able to see.
Other birds seen and heard included Whitethroat, Garden Warbler, Blackcap, Willow Warbler, Chiff Chaff, Greenfinch, Yellowhammer, Meadow Pipit and Linnet.
In the evening, a walk up to the “Nightjar site” above Shearwater Lake, which provided some spectacular sightings of this enigmatic bird.