Pittswood Birds

The first full walk of a new month, and my usual bird census took place, a good total of almost 700 birds was counted, of 47 species, a flying start to March! The best March species count was of 65, achieved back in 2006, but with a combined March total of 76, surley I can pass that ?
The most numerous bird seen, as is quite often the case, was the WOODPIGEON, with 148, but a good total of 57 BLUE TITS were also seen, and in the wildbird crop a minimum 40 REED BUNTINGS were feeding with at least a dozen YELLOWHAMMER. Of the finch family just 3 SISKIN were seen, along with 20 GREENFINCH, 8 GOLDFINCH, 4 BULLFINCH and 24 CHAFFINCH, These species don't seem to flock together in any great number on my patch. The smaller birds seem to have survived the worst of winter, 17 WRENS and 7 GOLDCRESTS were all vocal, as were the 14 DUNNOCKS. The only birds that were a bit light in numbers were the thrush family. REDWING numbered 27, FIELDFARE just 6, SONGTHRUSH 8, MISTLE THRUSH 6 and BLACKBIRD 35. The highlight for me though was finding that a COOT had come to the lake! Excellent stuff, it was in the company of 10 CANADA GEESE, 2 GREYLAG GEESE, 12 MALLARD and 10 MOORHEN. Other species seen singly were SPARROWHAWK, LESSER BLACK BACK GULL, COAL TIT, TREECREEPER, JAY and a flyover REDPOLL, typically the latter was not recorded at all last month!

The day wasn't conducive for photography, but here's a couple of pics anyway.

Above: A male Sparrowhawk surveys his domain. Below is the bird of the day a Coot!