Pittswood Birds

The wind turned to a NNE today, always a better direction than the strong westerlies for bringing in a migrant bird or two. This seemed to be the case this morning, as I saw a few MEADOW PIPITS fly over, plus a YELLOW WAGTAIL, a pity I couldn't stay any longer - but work beckoned. :-(

As I walked back home through Migrant Alley, all was quiet, I wonder what had passed through this morning ? I gave it an hour, and by 15:00 I was back out walking the Maize and paddocks. The first thing I noticed was two HOBBIES, circling round, chasing each other, then chasing JACKDAWS, and then SWALLOWS. They stayed arounf for 45 mins or so then moved off south. I passed the the weedy edge of the Maize crop, and a brown warbler flew up and straight into the crop, missed it again! All the fence posts and rails were scanned for Whinchat or Wheatear, but none were seen today, so I settled down for a half hours skywatching, which produced a few more Meadow Pipits, and a SPARROWHAWK, but little else of note.

Another walk round the Maize, and again the brown warbler flew up from the same place, missed it - again. The scrub at the north end of the paddocks was checked out, but nothing was found here, not even a Chiffchaff. Once more I went down to check the fencelines and posts, just in case something had dropped in, but it hadn't. A last walk up the weedy edge of the maize to try and get that brown warbler was the last move left to find something decent for the afternoon. I new exactly where it was, so I crept up within ten meters, then crawled the rest of the way! I got to where I had seen it twice before, and poked my head up above the weeds, this time I saw the weeds move, and got my bins on it, I kept on the bunch of weeds and a REED WARBLER showed it's face, looking straight at me, gotcha this time ! Then as I watched another bird came into view - a SEDGE WARBLER, excellent! Two scarce migrants (for my patch) on the same bit of weed! The Reed Warbler is the latest ive seen one on my patch, mind you this is only the 3rd Autumn out of eight that i've recorded one. I can't help thinking though, that the bird I first saw fly up this afternoon, didn't really give me an impression of Reed or sedge warbler, maybe i'm just hankering after that Grasshopper warbler !

Things are picking up maybe ?

Below are a couple of photo's of the Hobbies

below is a photo of the ''weedy edge'' There's warblers in there somewhere!!