Pittswood Birds

It was a bog standard May day as far as the weather was concerned, broken cloud and sunny intervals, with a light wind.

I decided to go over to the Lakeside Scrub this afternoon, it's been a few days since I last visited, but first I checked out the Butterflies in the Tree Nursery, finding, Peacock, Brown Argus, and Common Blue. I also checked the WHITETHROAT territory, and saw one carrying a large grub for it's young, i'll take that as a sign of successful breeding, another species for my patch, and one more to enter onto the Breeding Atlas data base. The same hedgerow is home to a pair of CHAFFINCH who were also feeding young, and the DUNNOCK nested here too but they appear to have fledged.

Over at the Lakeside scrub it made a welcome change to here some woodland bird song, CHIFFCHAFF and BLACKCAP mainly, but another Whitethroat was heard, and two CUCKOO'S called - trying to out do each other. Another two songsters battling for the loudest song contest were a couple of SONGTHRUSHES, whilst nearby on some power lines a TURTLE DOVE sang.

Butterflies recorded here were Small Copper, and Red Admiral, as well as the common White species. My second Broad Bodied Chaser was also found, giving me a chance to photograph it.

On the lake just 2 MALLARD were seen, and whilst there I heard a GOLDCREST singing as well as BULLFINCH'S calling. On the walk back home I heard a TREECREEPER calling as I walked through the Wet Woods, I scanned the treetrunks and found it, with a bill stuffed full of insects, no doubt about this species breeding on my patch.

So another day passes without any additional species for the May list, but the last 3 days of the month will all incorporate full patch walks, so I might just get lucky :-)

Below are some of the Butterflies seen today - again, they look better if you click on the image to enlarge them.
Above : Brown Argus

Above and Below: Small Copper, the camera doesn't show the true colour of this species I feel. They appear much redder in real life.

The next two photo's are of the Red Admiral, again the camera has failed to show the true colour, the Orangey stripes should be more red.

last of all the Broad Bodied Chaser, could be a Female, or a recently emerged insect of either sex.