Pittswood Birds

A bit of a mish-mash day today. I spent most of the morning doing my B.T.O. Breeding bird survey, on the square Km south of my patch. I did have time, late morning, for a quick sit on my seat at migrant alley in the hope of recording a new spring migrant, the most likely of which would be a Hobby or Swift, all I found though was a SPARROWHAWK, a KESTREL, and a pair of CUCKOOS that flew over. A very brief pre-dinner visit to the lake area, for another listen for Nightingales was unsuccessful, but I did see the now regular pair of MUTE SWANS and one of the lakes, and the WILLOW WARBLER was in fine song.
I did a hour or so garden watching just after dinner, but it was very slow, and again the Sparrowhawk was annoying me, a female came through and tried to take a COLLARED DOVE but just failed, leaving a plume of feathers to drift on the air.

Before visiting the lake area around 18.00hrs, I had another scan of the maize field at migrant alley, where I found 57 HERRING GULLS and 3 LESSER BLACK BACK GULLS - quite a site!

At the lake area the swans were still there, and the Willow Warbler was still going strong! I sat in the scrubby area for an hour and listened, and although I heard BLACKCAPS, CHIFFCHAFF,WHITETHROAT, LESSER WHITETHROAT, CUCKOO (non stop) as well as the female making the wierd bubbling call, there was no Nightingale, not looking good for this species on my patch this year, but I suppose its quite early yet. Also singing was a TURTLE DOVE the first time I have heard the ''purring'' this year, as well as a myriad of resident species all joining the ''Evening Chorus''

Kestrel Over Migrant Alley