Pittswood Birds

This morning started off sunny but cool, with an ever strengthening wind which brought a rash of short sharp showers over by 10:00am.

Luckily I was just finishing as the rain started, having got out an hour earlier than usual to try to minimise meeting the doggy disturbances, sometimes though, on my patch you can be out too early, especially when it's a cool morning, as most of the birds are still in cover.

Now we are well into August, the finding of passage Migrants is high on the wish list, and today provided me with two such species, first the GREEN SANDPIPER, it was back on the run off pool at the Tree Nursery, a big surprise to me, it's now been around since the 31 July, I last saw it on the first of this month.

The other passage bird was another WHEATEAR, sitting on a fence line at Migrant Alley first thing this morning, they are coming through a bit early this year, last August I had six sightings of single Wheatears, starting from the 13th.

Above is a distant photo of the Wheatear, it looked a bit cold and tired first thing, but I found it again as I returned from visiting the College Grounds, and it was feeding sprightly in one of the paddocks.

The College Grounds provided me with some of the breeding summer migrants for my patch, WHITETHROAT, BLACKCAP, CHIFFCHAFF and the SWALLOWS at the stables, but there were no Turtle Doves seen today, as usual, they are seen much less frequently in this month, nor were there any Swifts or House Martins today, it really has been a poor year here for the latter this year. Another missing species in the College Grounds was the Spotted Flycatcher, maybe they have dispersed already, or maybe I was too early for them today :-)

Other notable species today were two flyover BUZZARDS, seen above the Tree Nursery / Greenhouse Complex, a SPARROWHAWK zipped through the Small Holding, where a family of 5 BULLFINCH were feeding. I didn't visit the Scrubby Woods or lake area today, as it was the venue for an outside party last night! This made for a much reduced total of 43 species seen today.

Above is a Whitethroat, a bit distant, but at least it sat still :-)

The above Common Darter was seen along the edge of the Wet woods

lastly, I noticed that already some of the leaves on the trees in the College Grounds are turning Autumnal colours, and even starting to fall in the increasing wind that was blowing.