Pittswood Birds

A wet morning was followed by some welcome sunshine today, and as I walked home from work it felt positively 'spring like', I was almost expecting an early butterfly to go past :-)

By 14:00hrs I was out on my patch, and the sun was starting to disappear behind the incoming clouds, typical! I went over to the lakes again, checking out the small holding and wet woods on the way, which provided me with lots of BLUE and GREAT TITS but little else. The wet woods had completely thawed out now, and the recent rain had created some good patches of water, one of which had a pair of MALLARD on, but again, there was little to be seen in the surrounding woods, just a couple of GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKERS.

The footpath leading from the woods to the lake had a pair of GOLDCRESTS along it, and a NUTHATCH was giving an alarm call from the adjacent well wooded garden, the reason for which became clear when a SPARROWHAWK flew out.

At the lakes, the ice was still the dominant factor, but the edges of the lakes were now ice free, two MOORHENS had returned here. A quick walk round the scrub area was almost completely birdless - the pair of Sparrowhawks had obviously been through recently.

I just had enough time to visit the Tree Nursery and also have a quick scan over Migrant Alley before the rain resumed, a KESTREL, and flyovers by small groups of REDWING and FIELDFARE were the only birds of note. I'll be glad to get out tomorrow morning for a full patch walk, should be nice to get out in these warmer conditions :-)

PS Ive added a link in my side bar to another patch birders blog, which looks like it will be interesting to follow, especially for kent birders, its from Sissinghurst. Also note i'll be deleting any blogs from my side bar that are not updated at least every six weeks, as this unclutters things a bit :-)