Pittswood Birds

A four hour patch walk from 06:00hrs started off much the same as yesterday, heavy cloud cover making it a dark morning, and a stiff NW breeze blowing. There was a lot of flyover activity by GREYLAG and CANADA GEESE, both going over in flocks of anything from 4 to 60, probably involving around 200 birds in all. HERRING and LESSER BLACK BACKED GULL also went over, but no Black Headed Gulls today.

Bird of the day was undoubtedly the WHEATEAR, found at Migrant Alley, sitting up on a fence rail as they invariably do, this is the 3rd one this Autumn, lovely birds :-)

The family of SPOTTED FLYCATCHERS have moved back into the College Grounds, where a KINGFISHER zipped through at head height, going towards the stream. Also in the College Grounds was my first GREY WAGTAIL (72) of the month, the August tally is really getting on now - I wonder if it will beat the best ever monthly species tally of 78 achieved last September ?

On the raptor front, SPARROWHAWK, KESTREL and two HOBBIES were seen, and of the breeding summer visitors, SWALLOW, HOUSE MARTIN, CHIFFCHAFF, BLACKCAP, WHITETHROAT and TURTLE DOVE were all added to the day list, which reached a very good total of 50, this was incremented by one, as the MARSH TIT was feeding on the peanuts in my garden later in the morning.

Other notable species were a LITTLE OWL again heard in the Greenhouse Copse, a SKYLARK was in the sheep pasture at Migrant Alley, and NUTHATCH, GOLDCREST, and COAL TIT were in the lakeside scrub. SONGTHRUSH was the last bird on the list today, for some reason they were very hard to find today, just the one was seen in the Greenhouse Complex grounds.

Photo's today come from my garden, but the light was still pretty dire late morning.

Above : A GREAT TIT, Below 2 adult and 2 Juv GOLDFINCH

Above and below, more GREENFINCH! ( and a ROBIN !) A flock of 40+ were seen today