Pittswood Birds

The last day of the month, and this afternoon was the last chance to add to the March list. The weather was not too bad, a bit blowy, with some heavy cloud, which became lighter at times giving the odd bright spell.

A quick visit to the lakes was not without some reward, as I saw a LITTLE OWL fly from cover as I passed the through the Small Holding. The Wet Woods had 2 drumming GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKERS in it, but with the wind noisily blowing through the tree tops, I didn't hear anything else.

On the main lake, there were two male MALLARD, no doubt the females are on nests somewhere, as was the CANADA GOOSE, two more Canada Geese were on the small lake, with another male Mallard, and the COOTS were on the ornamental lake, thats a full month they have been around now , excellent :-)

I had a walk around the scrubby wood today, and heard a BLACKCAP singing, the first to return to this area. Also here, were BULLFINCH, TREECREEPER, GOLDCREST, and two LONG TAILED TITS, as well as the MARSH TIT. I stopped and had a listen for 10mins, hoping for a Willow Warbler to break into song, but only the CHIFFCHAFFS, DUNNOCKS, WRENS, ROBINS and BLACKBIRDS were singing.

I moved on to the Pub Field, and gave the pough a good scanning, but nothing was noted but JACKDAWS and a single male PHEASANT. The Tree Nursery had a little more interest, 2 LINNETS, 4 PIED WAGTAILS, 2 MISTLE THRUSH plus a flyover SPARROWHAWK.

Migrant Alley proved to be a windy place today, and it was hard to get out of it, but I stuck it out for an hour, scanning all the fencelines and posts, but no Wheatears were seen. A vigil watching over the sky only produced Corvids, 2 LESSER BLACK BACKED GULLS, and a singing skylark, so my run of spring migrants has come to an end - for the time being :-)

It's been a good March though, the total of 68 species is the 3rd best of the ten years, 3 behind the record total, set last year, but I think I was unlucky not to reach 70, considering I had 4 species that have never been recorded in any March previously. They being Woodcock, Stonechat, Black Redstart and Common redstart, these bring the combined March total for the ten years to 87, that makes March the joint 5th most productive month with December. The average number of species seen in march is 63, so I passed that easily enough :-)