Pittswood Birds

A promising Dawn

As you can see from the above photo, the day dawned with a bit of promise with the sun just peeking above the horizon, however it never really got going, and the cloud soon thickened up, making the camera redundant for the rest of the visit.

Today was the penultimate full patch walk of the month, and I was hoping to get another new species for the November list, but the 43 species that turned out were all pretty regular ones, however, the likes of Skylark, Pheasant, and Greenfinch which are normally easily found were missing today.

The four hour visit produced few highlights, as so often happens on November days,  but it was still disappointing to find so few birds about. Of the 43 species seen, ten were flyovers, which were : LINNET, LESSER REDPOLL, YELLOWHAMMER, HERRING GULL, BLACK HEADED GULL, FIELDFARE, REDWING, MISTLE THRUSH, PIED WAGTAIL, GREY HERON.

A KINGFISHER seen on one of the small ponds in the College Grounds caused some early cheer, only my second one this month, and the LAPWING on the Pub Field numbered 6 today, I always enjoy seeing them. Raptors were represented by SPARROWHAWK and KESTREL, which were both seen hunting around the Tree Nursery, upsetting the 4 MEADOW PIPITS that have returned after a two day absence.

Over on the Lakes 18 MALLARD and 4 MOORHEN were on the water, with 6 CANADA GEESE that left as soon as I arrived, while in the adjacent Scrubby Woods, numbers of birds were few, but the likes of TREECREEPER, NUTHATCH, BULLFINCH, GREAT SPOTTED and GREEN WOODPECKERS plus GOLDCREST were all found.

During the afternoon, the wind began to pick up, maybe at last heralding the end of this pattern of  weather that has been with us for months now.

Below are a couple of garden bird photo's, but given the poor light, they are nothing to get excited about !

Great Spotted Woodpecker

GREAT TIT. Not often I get photo's of these, they are very quick around the feeders, and who can blame with the Sparrowhawk lurking!!