Pittswood Birds

At last some of the sunshine we had been promised came our way, it was warm and sunny all day! Lots of butterflies were on the wing, Large and Small Skipper, Small white, Meadow Brown and painted ladies were all seen along the the boundaries of the tree nursery, where a WHITETHROAT was seen taking food back to its young. A pair of STOCK DOVES and a single TURTLE DOVE flew up from between the Laurel shrubs, and the usual GREEN WOODPECKER joined them a few moments later. A quick sit down in the shade to scan the sky was rewarded with the acrobatic performances of SWIFTS, SWALLOWS, and just a few HOUSE MARTINS, with a lone LESSER BLACK BACKED GULL heading west.

I next ventured over to the scrub at Migrant alley, where More Butterflies were seen, a few SPECKLED WOODS were here, but nothing more exciting than that. As I went round to take my skywatching seat, I saw that the grass field had been cut, and the cuttings lay in neat parallel lines ready to be collected. A pair of MAGPIES were there feeding there youngster, and as I watched I heard a LAPWING call, I scanned the field and sure enough up flew four of them, quite something for this species to be on my patch during June. I spent a hot 45 minutes watching the azure blue sky, but only saw a SPARROWHAWK and two KESTRELS, the latter interacted briefly before going their separate ways.

There were no new species for the month recorded, I think last years record of 67 will hold for another year. I had a look at what I had seen last June, but not this - Mandarin Duck, Kingfisher, Barn Owl, Greylag Goose, Little Egret, and Willow Warbler were seen last year, but this year I have seen Med. Gull and Red Kite that were not on last junes list!


Despite all the butterflies about, I failed to get a decent pic. of any. So I took some photo's of the birds visiting my garden pond when I got back. they were taken through the shed window so aren't too clear!
Above is a Juv. ROBIN and Below is one of the dozens of Juv. BLUE TITS using the pond.

Below is one of the Kestrels that was seen during my skywatch

Lastly the cut grass field, where the Lapwings were. This view looks north