Pittswood Birds

It was a hot and humid day again today, once the early cloud had disappeared, and only a 3 hour visit was possible as I was going out sightseeing with the better half a little later on. Not being able to do a full patch walk in the time available, I decided for a bit of early morning sky watching at Migrant Alley and a check of the fields and paddocks there.

Walking along Ashes lane on the way, a few of the common birds were noted, BLUE and GREAT TIT, LINNET and GREENFINCH, a GOLDCREST called from a garden conifer, plus in the same garden GREEN WOODPECKER, CHIFFCHAFF and BLACKBIRD were seen. A PHEASANT called from the Tree Nursery as I turned into the Greenhouse Complex to cut through to Migrant Alley, where SONGTHRUSH, BULLFINCH, and yesterdays WILLOW WARBLER were all found.

On taking my seat at Migrant Alley, the fist birds in the sky I noted were SWALLOWS, followed by PIED WAGTAILS, not surprising, as they all use the Greenhouses to roost. The WOODPIGEONS, ROOKS and JACKDAWS came in to feed on the paddocks, and a JAY flew past on its way to the wooded headland. Behind me, 40-50 meters away is the Greenhouse Copse, and I was surprised I could here a TREECREEPER calling from there, so still was the air this morning.

Carrying on the Sky watching, and it was slow going, for the next 2 hours I had the following :- CARRION CROW, STOCK DOVE, SKYLARK, STARLING, COLLARED DOVE, GOLDFINCH, HERRING GULL, LESSER BLACKED BACKED GULL, BLACK HEADED GULL (60) GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER, HOUSE MARTIN, but a bit more excitingly another sighting of the PEREGRINE. Not quite as exciting, but spectacular all the same, was seeing the hundreds of GREYLAG and CANADA GEESE flying from their roosting sites to their feeding sites.

In the Tall Hedge and Greenhouse Grounds, which were directly behind me, I saw and heard the following, WHITETHROAT, BLACKCAP, DUNNOCK, WREN, CHAFFINCH, ROBIN, and MAGPIE, the Tall hedge was particularly active with Chiffchaffs and Blue Tits chasing around :-)

Time was almost up, so I made a quick visit to the Tree Nursery, where I was surprised by the amount of warbler activity in the shrubs, there was lots of ''churring'' and ''tacking'' going on, so I stopped and waited to see what would appear, very soon birds started giving those typically short views, but I saw Blackcap, Whitethroat, Chiffchaff a HOUSE SPARROW, plus a LESSER WHITETHROAT, but the bonus bird amongst them was a REED WARBLER (61) another excellent addition to the months list :-) the final bird added to the list was a flyover SPARROWHAWK. I was surprised to find at the end of my visit I had accumulated 43 species, many species would have been added from the unvisited parts of my patch, maybe I would have even reached the holy grail of 60 species in a day, i'll never know :-)


Below are a few of the Greylag geese that went over, very early on.
Below is a view from my seat looking South, across the poly tunnels belonging to the Greenhouse Complex, and over ashes lane, then onto the Tree Nursery, which lies unseen behind the plastic.

Above is the scene looking Northwards.

Lastly below is the view looking east, over the Paddocks and fields of Migrant Alley, the college stables and grounds in the background.