Pittswood Birds

A very quiet afternoon was had on the patch today, but to fair there was much disturbance, mainly at Migrant Alley, where a crew of students were putting up wire meshing along the wooden stock fencing - I watched from a distance for a while - it was like viewing 5 lots of Laurel and Hardy!

Needless to say not much was seen birdwise there, a few MEADOW PIPITS, and GOLDFINCH'S, while overhead the passage of HOUSE MARTINS and SWALLOWS continued, i'll not see them here for many more days now, the mean last date for Swallow and House Martin respectively is the 9th and 8th of October, but the latest date for each is the 22 Oct. for House Martin, and the 20th Oct for Swallow.

Having no luck at Migrant Alley I made my way over to the Pub Field, where the Maize stubbles were being ploughed in. This brought in large numbers of Gulls, I counted over 500 in all, the vast majority were HERRING GULLS, but at least 8 were LESSER BLACK BACKED, and two dozen were BLACK HEADED, but try as I did, I couldn't find a Common Gull, or the much scarcer Meditteranean Gull. As I watched, a few more Meadow Pipits dropped in, as did 8 PIED WAGTAILS, alas that was as good as it got.

I made a slow walk around the run off pool and Tree Nursery in the adjacent field, where the pool held lots of Common Darters, and a female Southern Hawker, she was laying eggs on an old tree stump just above the water, I didn't know they laid there eggs out of the water? The stump does get sub-merged in wetter months and maybe she was counting on that? ( Thanks Greenie for ID of said Hawker)

The Tree Nursery had two CHIFFCHAFFS present, one was singing, the other just called, a KESTREL flew slowly over, but as I said earlier it was a very quiet visit and not much else was of note.

The months list is stalling majorly of late, and with only four afternoon visits left, the present September total of 72 is unlikey to reach the best September tally of 78, but who knows, one good visit could change all that  :-)

Southern Hawker Dragonfly ( Female)

Meadow Pipit

I sat for half an hour in my garden, hoping something out of the ordinary would come in, but apart from a fleeting glimpse of a Chiffchaff, it was only the BLUE and GREAT TITS that visited - probably not alot about due to the Sparrowhawk featured in yesterdays post  :-)

Brave Blue Tit