Pittswood Birds

Events conspired against me yesterday afternoon, and no birding was possible, so I was keen to get out this morning. Some interesting species turned up first thing, a GREY WAGTAIL at the stream, behind the college, and a COMMON GULL on the college sports pitch are not regular sightings. A KINGFISHER was seen at one of the ponds in the college grounds, but the star bird for me, was a STONECHAT at migrant alley. Another new species for the month, and the only record of a winter Stonechat on my patch, a most unexpected sighting!
I met up with another birder, who had been in touch with me, and wanted to be shown round my patch, he only had time to see the wet woods and the lake area, and with our chatting and not concentrating to hard on the birds we didn't see that much, but GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKERS were present in the wet woods, along with GOLDCREST and a few SISKIN feeding in Alder trees. A GREY HERON was on the lake, and earlier I had seen 2 CORMORANT flying from here. After my visitor left, I walked back through the wet woods and located a LONG TAILED TIT flock, along with a TREECREEPER and a MARSH TIT, a pity they weren't seen a bit earlier! A good day list of 48 species was seen, and with a COAL TIT, and NUTHATCH at the garden feeders, an impressive total of 50 species for the morning was acheived.


Above: This was going to be a Marsh Tit photo, but it flew of as I was just going to click the button, So a BLUE TIT will have to do!

Above: Another poor effort at photographing a Kingfisher, but having said that, it's better than any previous attempts! You can just make out somthing in its bill, looks like a damselfly, surley a bit late for one though. What do you think Greenie? http://greenieinthewild.blogspot.com/