Pittswood Birds

I had no walk to and from work today, as I had to attend a training course, in town, which was held in a windowless room :-( I'm told it was a lovely morning out, grrrrr.......

Arriving home this afternoon, I was later than normal, but the sun was hanging on....just, a thin veil of cloud was slowly building, and by 16:00hrs it was overcast with a cool N wind blowing.

My visit to the lakes was just a very short one, a quick check to see if anything new had dropped in overnight really, it hadn't, but the CANADA GEESE had returned, and the COOTS appear to be building a nest in the dead bullrush stems on the ornamental lake! Fantastic! I hope they are successful :-) I only visited the scrubby woods to listen for newly arrived Chiffchaffs, however none were heard amongst the regular BULLFINCH, TREECREEPER, GOLDCREST and COAL TIT. A few REDWING were seen in the leaf litter, it's getting quite late for them now, the mean last recording date for Redwing is the 31 March, but they become fewer and fewer in number as the month progresses.

The reason for not hanging about in the lake area, was so that I could spend some time over at Migrant Alley, scanning the fields and fences for a possible Wheatear, but on arriving I found a gaggle of students from the college putting up paddock fencing, which was a bit of a joke to watch :-) so that put an end to any birding there, I did have a half hour skywatch, looking out for a Sand Martin, but all I saw of note was one of the PEREGRINES from the tower. I ended the watch early when the cool N wind increased and the cloud thickened up.

Not much of a patch watch today then!! I ended up taking photo's of the garden birds back at my feeders, but the male SPARROWHAWK kept the more interesting species away. In all a very frustrating day :-)

Here's the garden photo's though.........

Daffodil above. ROBIN below

and the ever present BLUE TIT !