Pittswood Birds

After posting yesterday, I had a garden visitor early in the evening, it was this KESTREL. This is the first one ever to venture into my garden, and the 54th species to do so :-) very nice!

Back to today, and the fine weather is just about hanging on, with a thin, high cloud covering most of the sky all morning, it burnt off during the afternoon when it became warm and sunny again.

Being off work, I had most of the day to myself, and was out for much of it, paying short visits to Migrant Alley and the Tree Nursery after the full patch walk. This proved to be an even duller visit than yesterday!

I totaled up just forty species by the end of the walk, a pretty poor effort for April, and I had to extend the visit to the Scrubby Woods to find the likes of TREECREEPER, BULLFINCH, NUTHATCH and COAL TIT, thus making a 44 species visit a bit more realistic, but still fewer than an average April day.

Highlights were few, but it was interesting to see a group of 50 HERRING GULLS sitting out on the college sports pitch, with them were 6 LESSER BLACK BACKED GULLS, later in the morning they had relocated to the sheep pasture at Migrant Alley.

On one of my subsequent visits, 4 BUZZARDS were seen spiraling together as I watched from my sky watching seat, also a GREYLAG GOOSE went over calling noisily, and a GREY HERON was also seen, only the second record of one this month, the KESTREL put in a late appearance as well, so 48 species were eventually dragged out of the day!

It was noticeable that there was an increase in BLACKCAPS today, one was even singing outside my house this afternoon, an observation mentioned on other blogs ive read too.

Not many photo's opportunities came my way today, what a waste of good light! But I almost got an Orange Tip Butterfly to open it's wings :-)

below is a view looking west from Migrant Alley, with the Greenhouse Complex on the left, and the greenhouse Copse on the right.

PS: Tomorrow, as a bit of a change, I'll be doing a rare off patch visit, to Dungeness, maybe talk some of those migrants into heading my way :-)