Pittswood Birds

I was glad to get out on my patch this afternoon, the cold virus I had been suffering from earlier in the week had almost cleared, and the weather had improved markedly, however, the clear skies lasted only until I set foot out of the door, then the cloud started to roll in !!

Walking through the Small holding, I saw a KESTREL up hunting over the old orchard there, and a few finch's were about, mainly CHAFFINCH, but it was good to see two GREENFINCH'S as well. The Wet Woods still isn't very wet at all, and only the sound of first a MAGPIE, and  then a JAY, echoed through the otherwise quiet wood. As I walked the path between the two large gardens to get to the Lake, and as expected the only things on any of the 3 water bodies were 4 MALLARD, which hid under the overhanging tree branches, will I ever record any visiting ducks here again with that tosser groundsman about!? A little later a CORMORANT circled round, looking to drop down, but by then the groundsman had a chainsaw going, so it flew off again.

I made my way round the adjacent Scrubby Woods, and found a few birds, about a dozen REDWINGS were feeding on the last of the damsons, with at least one SONTHRUSH and a couple of BLACKBIRDS. A pair of TREECREEPERS gave me the run around, they were scampering through an Elder tree, but never kept still enough for the chance of a photo! Both a GOLDCREST and a COAL TIT were heard and then located amongst a dense thicket of Bramble, as I watched them, two LESSER REDPOLL flew over also calling.

The last of the light was made use of by a walk over to the Pub Field to see if the Lapwing were still there, and were they! At least 450 were feeding out on the seedling grass, along with the ever present BLACK HEADED GULLS, I counted as many as I could from the Tree Nursery, looking through the hedgerow so as not to flush them, but that job was done for me by a female SPARROWHAWK, and trying to count the mass of LAPWING that flew up and split into two groups was not easy!  I'd hoped for a Golden Plover to be out there with them, but none was seen. So I made my way home, dusk already! Finding five MEADOW PIPITS in the Tree Nursery and the vanguard of the roosting LINNET flock dropping in to their pre roost tree was the last action of the afternoon.

The only photo I took was a distant shot of part of the Lapwing flock as they split to avoid the Sprawk

Reckon there was at least 200-250 in this part of the flock