Pittswood Birds

Once again there was not much on offer from my patch today, but an interesting little party of birds fed on the College sports pitch as I passed across it on the way home from work, this included 2 REDWING, 2 FIELDFARE, 2 MISTLE THRUSH, a BLACK HEADED GULL, 3 STARLINGS, and a single WOODPIGEON.

On reaching home a SPARROWHAWK flew inches above my head, it was out of luck as I had already flushed up the birds feeding in my garden, nice to get my own back on it :-)

The usual walk over to the lake was undertaken in cold, and very dark conditions, with sleety showers blowing through on an icy wind, I had to keep moving to avoid the cold today! As has been the case all week, birds were at a premium, the lake did hold something different from the normal MALLARDS and MOORHEN though, a CORMORANT, well it's not what I had hoped for, but it's a start !

The walk around the scrubby wood continued to be a mostly quiet affair, but the BULFINCH'S I had heard yesterday were much more visible today, between 6 and 8 were seen, mostly a case of just the white rump disappearing into the bramble thickets though :-) 4 GOLDCREST were also seen, and around a dozen Redwing were tossing the leaf litter around, looking for food, a TREECREEPER was barely visible as it crept around the base of an Elder tree, even though it was just 10 meters away, it was the white of it's underbelly that gave it away.

As I left I could hear 2 COAL TITS calling, as well as a GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER, but the walk home across the Tree Nursery was uneventful, and by 15:30 it was almost dusk like, bringing a cold and unproductive 2 hour visit to an end.


I was kidding myself that it might be bright enough for a photo or two, and this shot over the Ornamental lake, with the smallest lake in the background was about the best i could do, the camera has done well to make the image a lot brighter than it actually was :-)