Pittswood Birds

Many thanks to all those who left comments wishing me a speedy recovery, especially Songbird for sending the much appreciated hug :-)

I was, unfortunately, well enough to go to work this morning, or fortunate, depends how you look at it :-) , but this afternoon I was back out on my patch. The early morning rain had little effect on the bone dry ground, and any remnants of it soon evaporated in the warm afternoon sunshine. I decided not to push myself too much, and just took a couple of hours walking around the Tree Nursery, as well as the paddocks and sheep fields of Migrant Alley.

The wild areas between the rows of shrubs and saplings, and the boundary hedgerow around the nursery was alive with the common butterflies, mostly Meadow Browns, but there were many Skippers, both Large and Small, as well as lots of Gatekeepers, which have all emerged over this weekend. A single Small Copper was also seen, my first for some weeks now. Birdwise, it is still as I would expect at this time of year on a warm afternoon, a WHITETHROAT was seen in the hedgerow, the KESTREL was hunting overhead, both LINNET and GREENFINCH were feeding recently fledged young, and a batch of unseen newly fledged WRENS were ''squeaking' in a bramble thicket.

A walk around the fields didn't produce the early migrant Whinchat, Stonechat or Wheatear, fingers crossed they will all appear in the next few weeks. The leaking water trough attracted both SWALLOW and HOUSE MARTIN, the latter was collecting mud for a nest, a late attempt. ROOKS were in the sheep pasture, with all this years offspring, a SKYLARK was up high singing next to the swirling SWIFTS, but the sighting of the afternoon was another HOBBY. This one was in hunting mode, and it flashed through, making some failed attempts to catch a Swallow. Not much else going over, 3 BLACK HEADED GULLS, that were scanned intensely, trying to make a Med. Gull out of one of them, and 5 HERRING GULLS that went over singly.

Only Butterfly photo's today, first two are of the Small Copper........

..............then the Small Skipper..............

...........and lastly one of the many newly emerged Gatekeepers.