Pittswood Birds

This morning I spent just an hour at migrant alley, before going off on the KOS fieldtrip (which produced some good birds -LS Woodpecker, Barn Owl and a couple of Buzzard) my hours stint on the horse jump didn't give me anything exciting though. A couple of SKYLARK sang, and a few groups of HERRING GULL flew westwards.

I got back from the fieldtrip about 13:00, and after something to eat and drink, I was back over sitting at migrant alley. I spent 90 mins watching the sky, as very little else was about. After 10mins or so a SPARROWHAWK was seen, and as I watched it dueling with a carrion crow for some minutes, I noticed two smaller birds come into my view, I switched my attention to these, and could see they were Either House Martins or sandmartins. They were quite high up, but I could eventually see there was no white rump on them, which made them SANDMARTIN (80), anyway it's far too early for a House martin, of which the earliest date ever seen was on Apr.14. So the year list goes up one more! Sandmartins are mostly ever seen just passing through my patch, and most records concern birds on Autumn migration, when they can occasionally be seen feeding over the area or more rarley, perched up with Housemartins on the telephone wires.. Today's sighting is only the second spring record of this species, the last being in Apr 2007, so it was a good one to get!

Below is a Male CHAFFINCH that I ''passed'' on the way back home.