Pittswood Birds

The first frost of the autumn greeted me this morning, something of a shock to the system! The first full visit of the month always means that a count up of every bird seen and heard takes place. I had some good totals of ROBIN (57) and BLACKBIRD (47) as well as moderate totals for BLUE TIT (37) and GREAT TIT (21), but only 4 SONGTHRUSH and just 3 GOLDFINCH. The birds counted are on the conservative side, but the numbers do give a snap shot of whats happening on my patch.
I don't expect to many surprises during October, but there was one today. As I left the house after my mid-point break, 2 RING NECK PARAKEET (97) flew over, if I had left 20 seconds later I would have missed them! I'm slowly inching my my to that 100 total in a year, can this be the year, the 7th of trying ?
Migrant alley had over 120 LINNETS still, and the STONECHAT was still around, now in the fenceline that the Whinchat had favoured last month. I was pleased to find 2 YELLOWHAMMER here too. Another nice sight, was that of at least 35 SISKIN feeding in alders along the stream behind the college. On the way back through Migrant Alley, there were at least 20 HOUSE MARTIN and 4 SWALLOWS feeding above the sheep pasture and Maize stubbles, no doubt this will be one of the last sightings of these summer birds this year. The only other summer birds seen were 2 CHIFFCHAFF.

Now the Autumn is here I will pay a bit more attention to my garden visitors, first thing this morning I had a JAY come in, surprisingly a really scarce bird in my garden.


Above: A frosty golf course, it didn't bother the hardy MOORHENS though

Above is the Stonechat, maybe it will overwinter?

Just one of the Siskin at the alder trees. It's always nice to see these acrobatic little finch's back for the winter.