Pittswood Birds

The rain that started falling yesterday at around 11am, continued on all the way through the night and into this morning, finally ending at around midday today, as you can see from above, every hole, dip and depression in the ground was full to the brim with water, that should stop the farmers bleating :-)

Anyway, as it was so wet out, I didn't walk to the lake area this afternoon, as the trees and undergrowth were still dripping torrents, instead I walked around the Tree Nursery and Migrant Alley. There were quite a few birds about in the Tree Nursery, LINNETS, PIED WAGTAILS, the WHITETHROAT, which I still cant find any breeding evidence of, and a family of GREAT TITS were most obvious, but a skulking male PHEASANT was also seen. A TURTLE DOVE dropped in to feed on the weed seed, as did 3 STOCK DOVES, while a gang of mostly immature STARLINGS fed in the sheep pasture in the adjacent field. Overhead a party of SWALLOWS alerted me to the presence of a male SPARROWHAWK, their alarm calls not stopping until the hawk had been seen off, after which, I found the cause of the extra concern the Swallows had shown, 3 Juvs were sitting on the roof a nearby tumbledown shed.

At Migrant alley, it was mostly ROOKS, JACKDAWS, CARRION CROWS and WOODPIGEONS, but the flooded fields were being used by Pied Wagtails and Starlings. Another WREN family were seen in the nearby Greenhouse Complex grounds, flyovers by 2 BLACK HEADED GULLS, 6 HERRING GULLS and a LESSER BLACK BACKED GULL were the only other notables.

Photo's today are of one of the half a dozen Pied Wagtails that were on the flooded sheep pasture ( above)

Whilst below are a few photo's of the Juv. Swallows

Back home in the garden the whole place was teeming with young BLUE TITS, up to 9 were on this feeder below, and similar numbers on the other two nut feeders.

The GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER doesn't take to kindly to them stealing all the peanuts, and I watched it twice take a peck at one of the young Blue Tits, taking out a beak full of feathers in the process!