Pittswood Birds

Once again there was wall to wall sunshine for my afternoon patch visit today, but despite the lovely spring conditions, my bird sightings were pretty meagre.

The Small Holding had both GREAT SPOTTED and GREEN WOODPECKERS present, and the regular BLUE and GREAT TITS had formed a small flock in the old orchard there, otherwise little of note really.

The wet woods is drying out a bit now, but there is still enough water in the ditches to maybe find a late Teal or mandarin duck dabbling around on, but not today, in fact the only thing heard or seen was another Great Spotted Woodpecker, the reason for this became clear when the big female SPARROWHAWK flew out of a large Oak, then proceeded to weave it's way through the trees.

Walking the footpath from the woods to the lake area, there is a large garden on either side, one is a larged lawned affair with lots of Oak trees peppering the lawn, I saw two MISTLE THRUSHES here, the other garden is a wooded one, where I record lots of woodland species, but today only the GOLDCREST was present, but I was bemused at the gardener there, he was actually raking up the leaves and debris from the woodland floor and burning it ! What for ? It's a wood for christ sake! Another case of over tidying!!

Anyway, I proceeded to the lakes, but the excitement of yesterday wasn't repeated, the Pochard had departed, as had the single Coot, the pair of COOTS on the ornamental lake were still present though :-) Each of the three water bodies had a pair of CANADA GEESE on, the only other water fowl seen was a pair of MALLARD.

The slim pickings continued as I walked the Scrubby Wood, only a pair of LONG TAILED TITS, a singing COAL TIT and a pair of BULLFINCH were seen out of the usual woodland species.

I decided to visit the Pub Field and Tree Nursery, the latter had a work crew in, ''tidying'' the ditch that runs the length of it, so nothing seen there, the Pub Field also had some work going on, muck spreading was in progress, readying the field for this years crop of Maize - see below.

This had attracted 40-50 ROOKS, 2 PIED WAGTAILS, 8 FIELDFARE and 2 STARLINGS, the BLACK HEADED GULLS weren't far away, circling above. The patch KESTREL was seen flying low over as well.

I carried on for a quick sit at Migrant Alley, and despite it being a bit early, I scanned the fenceline and fence post for an early migrant Wheatear, I didn't see one of course, but it's good to get some practise in :-) I didn't see much at all really, a few WOODPIGEON, and corvids, plus 3 STOCK DOVES flying over, and a long distance view of one of the Peregrines on the tower at Hadlow square, oh, and lots of Sheep and lambs

As I said it was slim pickings today, but everyday cant be a good one when you patch watch :-) I had enough light left when I got home to get a few garden bird photo's, below is the Great Tit that eluded me on sunday.

Above and below is a GREENFINCH

lastly, another GOLDFINCH, I cant resist these!