Pittswood Birds

A warm sunny windless day today, well, that is until I left work, when it clouded over and the wind got up! It remained warm and quite muggy for my walk though, which was the same trek as yesterday - over to the lakeside scrub to see if any Garden Warblers had turned up. As I passed through the small holding to get to the lake, I was sure I heard the sound of a Sedge Warbler, just a short burst, but as I stopped by the patch of bramble to wait and listen, a bloody jumbo jet went over slow and loud, one of those ones that seems to take an age to go over :-) After that, I neither heard or saw anything from the brambles, Sedge warbler would have been a good spring species to get for the year list!

When I arrived at the lakeside scrub, the whole place seemed subdued, certainly not so much singing as was heard yesterday. A couple of half hearted BLACKCAPS and CHIFFCHAFFS, the odd DUNNOCK and the CUCKOO now and again, were all that was heard on first arriving. I sat for half an hour and listened and watched, but all that was added was a TREECREEPER, NUTHATCH and GOLDCREST, also a KESTREL that was hunting over the scrub, I thought latter was responsible for the quitness of the area.

I decided to have a walk round, and maybe meet a Garden warbler by chance, or something else, well I did meet something else, a TAWNY OWL. It was sat up in a tree, barely concealed at all, now I know why it was so quiet around the place!

After taking a few snaps of the Owl, I quietly moved off and left it in peace, then headed for Migrant Alley. Here it was much the same as yesterday, ROOKS, JACKDAWS, CARRION CROWS, PIED WAGTAILS and a flock of 23 LINNETS. Two SKYLARKS rose up from the pasture and sang as they spiralled up and out of sight, and GREY HERON flew over - just like yesterday. Both SPARROWHAWK and another Kestrel were hunting over the paddocks, to the concern of the dozen or so SWALLOWS, which kept mobbing them.

Once again a bog standard walk ( apart from the Owl). I think i'll take an evening stroll out tonight, see if something different is happenning.

Below are a few Tawny Owl photo's. The last photo is looking south across the newly seeded 'pub' field.