Pittswood Birds

It was hot right from the very start of my 4 hour walk this morning, even though I was out at 05:45Hrs the sun was strong, and energy sapping. Once again I had to be back for 10:00Hrs, so it was a bit of a rush round.

The first sighting of the day was a pair of BULLFINCH'S at the garden feeders, it seems the female has learned how to use the tube feeder now, - there'll be a whole flock of 'em come the winter :-)

It immediatley struck me how quiet it was this morning, not many birds called or sang, just the odd WREN, WOODPIGEON and COLLARD DOVE, but the WHITETHROATS were singing their scratchy little song as if they had just arrived from Africa.

Four SKYLARKS chased over the uncut silage field at Migrant Alley, where a family of SWALLOWS were taking a drink from a leaking water trough, and again the TURTLE DOVE 'purred' from it's perch atop a power pylon. Much of the walk provided the same species as yesterday, with the exception of a KINGFISHER, seen on the College Stream, and a YELLOWHAMMER that gave some brief song at the scrub along the north end of Migrant alley, only the second one recorded this month.

The second part of my walk over at the lakeside scrub, provided me with the usual suspects, TREECREEPER, NUTHATCH, JAY, BLACKCAP, however two species not seen yesterday appeared on todays list, the LONG TAILED TIT and a family of CANADA GEESE on the water.

I made my way over to the Tree Nursery and sat down for some skywatching, the daylist was on 45, average for late June, but the addition of flyover CORMORANT, GREY HERON and 3 BLACK HEADED GULLS, which were seen amongst a procession of HERRING GULLS all going NW, made the list to 48. At that point I had to be getting back home, but the real treat of the day awaited me, when just yards from home, I heard a rapid ki-ki-ki-ki above me, I looked up and saw a PEREGRINE diving at a HOBBY -an awesome sight, and one that made the daylist to a round 50 - well good!

Photo's taken today - SWALLOWS on the fence by the leaking water trough.

A young CARRION CROW atop an Alder tree

Also more Roe Deer photo's. This animal can't seem to find it's way out of the Maize crop in the 'Pub Field'.

Do I get out this way.........

......or that way....

Below is the only Common Blue Butterfly seen today

and this Beautiful demoiselle sat for a nice photo

As did this Common Blue Damselfly