Pittswood Birds

Again it was very blustery this afternoon, and little could be expected in the conditions. On the way home from work I saw that the excavators had gone from migrant alley, and all was quiet, so, despite feeling rubbish ( got a cold coming, sniff, sniff, or is it Swine flu?) I decided to go over to the scrub to the north of the fields, as it affords some shelter from the wind. There were some birds here, LESSER and COMMON WHITETHROAT were just about audible, a BLUE TIT went back and forth with beakfulls of caterpillars, feeding it's nestlings in a box, and overhead HERRING and LESSER BLACK BACKED GULLS toyed with the wind.

I walked a circuit of the fields, and got thoroughly blasted by the incessant wind, the only reward for my bravery was seeing a flock of 30 ish LINNETS. I retreated to the shelter of the scrub again to warm up, and from there I followed the tree line down to the watery ditch, on the NW boundary of my patch, which was also pleasantly sheltered. Here there was at least some wildlife action, in the form of my first Broad Bodied Chaser, a female, which stayed put on a sunny twig for some pics. Also a Large Red damselfly, and a Blue type damselfly which flew off never to be seen again before I could ID it!

Not a very good birding day, but I had some fun with a group of 5-6 SWALLOWS that were hawking for insects low over an adjacent fresh cut silage field, I took over 30 photo's trying to catch them skimming low over the grass field, but the clever little birds always put themselves between me and the sun, so most of the photo's were into the light. I did get one half decent shot though.

Still no Spotted Flycatchers!

Below are a couple of photo's of the broad bodied chaser,

............and the Large Red damselfly

This is the only Swallow pic that resembled a Swallow!