Pittswood Birds

A four and a half hour visit round my patch today was a bit more interesting. 46 species were seen, but the numbers of birds were low, and any birds that were about, the wind made difficult to find.
Two new species were added to the months list - BARN OWL which was snoozing in the shack, and CORMORANT that flew over migrant alley. Whilst at migrant alley, I thought I again saw a Sedge Warbler fly from the grassy verge and into the Maize crop, but only a glimpse was had. It was no good, I was going to have to sit and wait till it came out! Half an hour later, nothing!! That was it, I decided to walk round the whole crop, two lines of maize in. I flushed out a CHIFFCHAFF, and a couple of PIED WAGTAILS, when I came to where I thought the mystery bird went in, I again saw it for half a second, it flew up and away, further into the crop, not giving sufficient views for me to ID it for certain - it was a probable Sedge Warbler. I gave up, and decided I'd try another day.
The college grounds held my interest for a while, a few butterflies were out, as well as Dragonflies, and one of the pools held at least 4 Red Eyed Damselflies, I've never seen one before. No chance of a pic. though, they were right out in the middle of the water. On the college sports ground, SWALLOWS were skimming close to the grass, I took 33 photo's, and got one that I think is my best ''swallow in flight'' pic yet.

I don't think i'll do much better than this - not this year anyway. If you enlarge the pic. it looks a bit better!

I'll stick my neck out and say this is a female common darter.

Here's the Barn Owl having a snooze. I made sure I didn't disturb it, I was at least 30 meters away, and behind a hedge!

You can just see it in the center of the roof space.