Pittswood Birds

After heavy overnight rain, and a howling gale, my patch was once again waterlogged for my afternoon visit, it had just started to dry out a bit too! My walk started out as usual, a few REDWING, and a couple of MISTLE THRUSH in the small holding, and adjacent fields, a small group of 4-5 BULLFINCH were feeding on the blackthorne buds, and 3 MALLARD were on the wterlogged fields, and NUTHATCH gave me a photo chance. Thereafter the afternoon went from bad to worse. The tree mucher in the nursery was working up against the edge of the field, where it meets the wet woods, and it was so loud I couldn't here a thing, not that anything was seen anyway. The lake had obviously been disturbed recently too, only 3 CANADA GEESE were on it, and not a single Mallard, there were just a few SISKIN in the nearby garden with the feeding station. Oh well, I still had Migrant Alley to scan, but when I got there a dog walker was just walking back to his house from the maize stubble, his three loose dogs following behind, at various intervals. If that wasn't enough disturbance, it was that time of year when one of the student groups from the college get to go out in small gatherings, and walk the fields to learn about bio - diversity. So absolutely nothing was seen on the fields, I spent an hour watching the skies, where I did at least get the first BLACK HEADED GULL for the month, and helping out the better looking students with their questionairs (-: They seemed quite impressed with my identification of fly over birds, JACKDAW, ROOK, CARRION CROW, PIED WAGTAIL and the likes. So that was my afternoon, a waste really, but some days are like that on my patch, it's not a nature reserve - unfortunately. There was one more addition to the months list, a GREY HERON dropped into one of the ornimental ponds at the college grounds as I walked to work this morning.

Above a NUTHATCH, one of the few birds seen today

You might have to click on these pics to enlarge them to see the fields properly.

Above is a view from just inside the wet woods, looking out onto the tree nursery, after the clearance. the shack in the distance is where the Barn owl was roosting, not seen now since January.

Below is the view from the shack, looking back at the wet woods, the '' tree muncher'' is just visible.

Below is another pic. from the wet woods.the tree muncher is busy. In the background, you can see the green of the Laurel and viburnum shrubs that are going to remain until 2011.