Pittswood Birds

Heavy overnight rain ceased before dawn today, and the strong winds abated somewhat, leaving a gusty and partially cloudy afternoon for my patch visit. The stormy weather seems to have blown what few birds were being seen, elsewhere!  Remarkably few passerines were seen, making it eerily quiet through the Small Holding and Wet Woods, just a JAY and a GREEN WOODPECKER broke the quietness.

On reaching the lakes, the usual MALLARD were seen, some of which had ventured out from the overhanging branches, the first time in a while I've seen them at ease, I counted twelve on the main lake and 4 on the small lake, but once again the ornamental lake was empty.. A GREY HERON dropped in whilst I was scanning the main lake for a Kingfisher, and up above a SPARROWHAWK circled over. The Scrubby Woods didn't hold much at all, no feeding flock was seen today and it was down to a few REDWING, BLACKBIRDS and SONGTHRUSHES to fly up in front of me, making out to be a Woodcock  :-)  I left a bit disappointed at the lack of birdlife, and tried my luck over at the Tree Nursery and Pub field, the former had 10 MEADOW PIPITS, and a hunting KESTREL, but little else, although the tail end of a fox was seen disappearing into the shrubs. The Pub Field had far fewer LAPWING today, just 15 were counted, they had probably been flushed earlier in the day, 10 BLACK HEADED GULLS criss-crossed the field, and as I left for home a CORMORANT flew over towards the lake area. Not a very exciting visit, to say the least!