Pittswood Birds

It was back to work this morning, and nothing much noteworthy was seen on the walk in. On the way home I saw that heavy machinery had moved back into Migrant Alley, so that messed that up for any migrant species dropping in.

After some food and drink I walked out to get some photo's of my patch, as has been requested by some fellow bloggers! ( the pic's are better if you click on them to enlarge them )

When starting a full walk of my patch, I come out of my house, and turn right into Ashes lane (below). The hedge on the right holds common species, and sometimes Common Whitethroat, Lesser Whitethroat or Bullfinch, behind the hedge is the Tree Nursery, while immediately left is the greenhouse complex.

250 yards down the lane I turn right, into the tree nursery, over this gate.

Halfway across is a style, which takes me into the second field which was part of the tree nursery, but it is finished with now. It will be turned over to sheep grazing and the occassional crop. The clump of trees in the distance is my next destination.

The photo below shows the bare ex-tree nursery with the Wet Woods in the distance.

Below is the next destination, it's a ditch that holds the run off water from the nursery fields, it's normally dried out by this time of year. I get some good species here on accassions.

Leaving the ditch, I walk through a gate, and into a sheep grazed field, along a 300 meter hedge, shown below.

The run off ditch is now immediatley on my left. The hedge row takes me back onto ashes lane then into migrant alley.

This was the view of migrant alley today! Full of machines.

Above is the view as I turned left along the maize crop, to go around the workings. The greenhouses in the top of the photo.

Above is the view as I turn right, its the tall hedge at migrant alley

Above shows the view from standing on the fence, with the tall hedge behind me. This view is NNW, the treeline is the boundary of my patch.

Above is a view North, from the same place, over the maize crop looking at the scrubby headland.

Above is from the same place agin looking NNE. at the college stables, behing these is the college grounds.

Above another shot, but more to the NE over the maize, to the college sports pitch.

Below, is a photo a little further on, it shows the pipe line workings, all the bare earth would nomally be maize, you can see the weedy edge of the left hand side of the crop.

Turning the corner, along the 3rd side of the maize I saw this prisine Comma butterfly, not seen one for a while.

Below is the view down the 3rd side of the maize, this is a favourite place for passage migrant Whinchat or wheatear.

Below is looking back SW across the maize, to the Greenhouses. This is where I sat and watched the Horse paddocks behind me, and to the left. After 20 mins or so I was surprised to see two YELLOW WAGTAILS drop in. They fed around the horses for a few minutes, then something startled them and they flew off, and carried on their southward journey. Well thats what I did this afternoon, I didn't see a lot, but the Yellow wagtails are always special.