Pittswood Birds

Above: The last species recorded today - A Treecreeper.

The sun still refused to shine today for the penultimate full walk round my patch for February. So photo's are again at a premium! All the species of bird that I could have expected showed up today, I had 20 species on the book in the time it took to walk the 200 yards to the tree nursery, mostly birds that were singing, SONG THRUSH, CHAFFINCH, ROBIN, DUNNOCK, COLLARED DOVE, WREN and the likes, but I also heard a WOODPIGEON in full ''coo'' , their song always reminds me of big horse chestnut tree's in full flower on a sunny summers day. More of the common birds turned up in the tree nursery, MAGPIE, STARLING, BLUE and GREAT TIT, as well as the first few gull species to fly over, quite a few HERRING GULLS were heading west, along with a single LESSER BLACK BACKED GULLand 3 GREAT BLACK BACKED GULLS, the first this month. Migrant Alley had just a few FIELDFARE, around a dozen, with 5 REDWING, joining them on the maize stubbles were a couple of SKYLARK, and a MEADOW PIPIT. The Alder trees along the college stream were full of SISKIN, up to 60 were feeding, along with 7 LINNET. The college grounds and gardens produced a few more species, COAL TIT, MISTLE THRUSH, LONG TAILED TIT, BULLFINCH and a species not seen since the 8th Feb, a KINGFISHER. The REED BUNTING and YELLOWHAMMER flock at the wild bird crop, seems to have increased slightly, with around 75 birds in total, great to see! The last part of my walk through the Small holding, wet woods and lake area, was quieter, as can be expected by mid morning, but I still got a GREY HERON on the lake, and more Siskin in the woods, and a pair of TREECREEPERS gave me my only photo of the day, as I walked back through the small holding. A very good total of 51 species was recorded, it's not often i get to the 50+ mark.

News on the ''February Garden Bird Count'' . Two new species were added this afternoon, STOCK DOVE - 3 flew over the Greenhouse complex to the front of my house, and a long anticipated species, the LONG TAILED TIT, a pair were seen in the shrubs and tree's surrounding the greenhouses.