Pittswood Birds

A much better morning weatherwise, a clear blue sky, with little wind, although the wind picked up later, bringing in varying amounts of cloud.

I was able to get out at 06:15 this morning, now that it's light at that time, and during the 4 hour visit 45 species were recorded, just about what I would expect at this time of year. There wasn't any new species for the month seen, but a few birds turned up that aren't usual regulars. A small flock of GOLDFINCH, seen in alder trees along the college stream, contained at least 4 SISKIN and at least 1 REDPOLL, it was hard to count them as the leaves are still on the Alder tree's.

Migrant Alley had a few birds on the fields and paddocks, I watched a party of two dozen SKYLARK drop in on the seedling grass, and a mixed flock of around 25 birds, was made up of mostly YELLOWHAMMER, as well as 7 LINNETS, 4 MEADOW PIPITS and 2 REED BUNTINGS they were all around the tall hedge. A dozen FIELDFARE was a nice sight, they dropped down from the blue, and went straight for a hawthorne hedge, which still had a few berries on it, after the heavy cutting it recieved a couple of weeks ago. Both SPARROWHAWK and KESTREL were hunting around the greenhouse complex, the latter was there for most of the day.

A small movement of WOODPIGEONS was observed during the visit, several small flocks were seen heading south, involving around 70 -100 birds, also seen going over were 75 CANADA GEESE, and 32 GREYLAG GEESE, common birds, but still nice to watch as they speed low over the area, a lone CORMORANT was also seen heading south.

The wet woods had a mixed feeding flock of mainly GREAT, BLUE, and LONG TAILED TITS, but it also had two COAL TITS and two TREECREEPERS amongst them, with a GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER following up.

The lake was it's usual quiet self, just two Canada Geese, 4 MALLARD, 6 MOORHEN and a single GREY HERON were seen there, the surrounding scrub had 4 BULLFINCH'S feeding in the bramble, and the only two GREENFINCH'S of my visit were seen here, this species is really getting hard to find on my patch now - even my garden feeders only have two or three at a time now.


Below is the rising sun - good to see it coming up before 07-00hrs again.

Below is a MAGPIE, caught in full flight.

The next two photo's of a COLLARED DOVE and a Great Spotted Woodpecker were taken from my garden.