Pittswood Birds

Another fantastic, warm sunny day over my patch today, but the weekend draws near and we all know what that means :-)

4 GREYLAG GEESE flew over Migrant Alley early this morning as I walked in to work, nothing else much seen in the half hour walk in though.

This afternoon, it was the Butterflies that got my attention more than the birds, with 4 Peacocks and 2 more Comma's seen, it's good to have them to distract me from the lack of birds around at the moment.

With most of the winter birds now gone or virtually gone, and only the CHIFFCHAFF to replace them so far, things are pretty quiet. I did find 4 SISKIN in the Scrubby wood, the last remnants of winter. Nearby on the lakes, nothing has changed, and it is unlikely to now, the 6 CANADA GEESE were present, along with the pair of COOTS, and a pair of MALLARD, with just one MOORHEN found.

TREECREEPER, GOLDCREST, LONG TAILED TIT, COAL TIT and BULLFINCH were all found in the Wet woods, and/or in the Scrubby Woods, along with the already mentioned Chiffchaff, but all except the latter were recorded in smaller numbers than of late. A pair of MISTLE THRUSH was in one of the large gardens just off the footpath that leads from the lake back to the woods.

I skipped the Tree Nursery today as it had a work crew in it, and headed for a look at the Pub field. Here the field was being heavily muck spread, the stench in the warm conditions was appalling, but I bravely sat and scanned the field, sure that with all those flies about something would be out there. All I found were 2 PIED WAGTAILS and the usual gang of mixed corvids, not worth putting up with the smell for really :-)

A walk around the paddocks and sheep pasture at Migrant alley was also a bit disappointing, but there is still lots of disturbance here to be fair, so I cant expect much. The only birds of note were a small flock of STARLINGS and a GREEN WOODPECKER.

A little later, I went back to the Pub field, just to make sure I hadn't missed that Wheatear, I hadn't ! I did see a mixed flock of Gulls come down and inspect the field though, 2 of them were LESSER BLACK BACKED, 5 were BLACK HEADED and 4 were HERRING GULLS, they left when they realised the tractors weren't actually ploughing, that will happen in the next few days, so it will be worth checking when it happens.

Ive not added anything to the months list since last weekend now, and the total remains stuck on 63, which is joint fourth best out of the ten years, and still 8 behind the highest March total set last year. I desperately need some migrants!

Photo's today are of the Comma Butterfly again, I'm not taking them for granted just yet :-)

Also this Mistle Thrush, I don't get many Mistle thrush photo's !