Pittswood Birds

Hot and sunny again today, so I decided I would wait until late afternoon to do my walk of the patch. I left at 17:00, but it was still a bit warm even then! A trip around the tree nursery, produced a WHITETHROAT, which I watched carrying food to its nestlings, SWALLOWS were whizzing low over the grassy areas, and high above them were 15 - 20 SWIFTS. I watched four single TURTLE DOVES fly past, from the scrub area,they must have a food source off my patch somewhere, I didn't see them come back though.

Having not seen any new species for the month here, I walked over to the Greenhouse complex, via Migrant alley, where I picked up a KESTREL for said list, and STOCK DOVE, of which 3 were feeding in the maize crop. Another species was added shortly after when I spied a YELLOWHAMMER singing from the top of the earth mound thrown up by the pipeline workings. I sat down against a fence post, and overlooked the field of Maize that lies between my house and the greenhouses, and was pleased to see the MEDITTERANEAN GULLS were back, having a pre-roost feed. They fly constantly around for hours, picking up small prey from the field, great to watch. As I watched them, a MISTLETHRUSH flew down onto the seedling maize crop, from the small copse, which lies next to the field, it seems this particular field is full of invertibrates! One last species for the May list was seen, when a LITTLE OWL appeared on a fence post, 50 yards away, I got some rubbish photo's of it eating a small mouse. I thought if I got a bit nearer I could get some good owl pics. So I crept up from behind it, out of the small copse, but it saw me at the last moment and flew of to where I was originally sitting! No stupid Owl this one!!

Not a bad 90 minutes outing then, 5 more for the month list, 49 now, and some easy birds still to pick up.


Before I went out, I took some GOLDFINCH pics at the feeders in the garden. Nice, but still a bit over exposed on the white bits!

Below is a couple of Photo's of the Med . gulls.

lastly an horrendous effort to capture the Little owl eating its mouse! It was just too far away. :-)