Pittswood Birds

A four hour full patch walk from 07:30hrs, produced just about everything expected, but not anything unexpected unfortunately,  with the tally of 43 species being just about the average for a January day - its been ''just about average'' for months now!

On the Lakes today, were 3 CORMORANTS, the most seen here since last March, also a GREY HERON, 18 MALLARDS and 6 MOORHENS were on view, quite busy for these small water bodies !  I spent an hour around the Lakes and Scrubby Woods, hoping something else would drop onto the lakes, and although a pair of CANADA GEESE flew low over, they didn't visit the water,  the time was spent finding the woodland species that were around in ones and two's, the likes of BULLFINCH, TREECREEPER, NUTHATCH, COAL TIT, LONG TAILED TIT, GOLDCREST,  were found, along with the more regular BLACKBIRDS, SONGTHRUSH, WREN, DUNNOCK, ROBIN, CHAFFINCH, GOLDFINCH, and the Woodpeckers, GREEN and GREAT,  but the highlight of the day was seeing, at last, some FIELDFARE (53) 14 flew over, but didn't stay.

As I made my way over, and then walked the Tree Nursery, Pub Field and Migrant Alley, I sporadically added to the days list, with the likes of singing MISTLE THRUSH, and flyovers of STOCK DOVE, YELLOWHAMMER, MEADOW PIPIT and a hunting SPARROWHAWK, two SKYLARKS in the sheep pasture at Migrant Alley were a good find.

What happened next was straight out of my worst nightmare, I went over to the College Grounds and found that a ''Dog Agility'' event had been staged for the morning - dogs everywhere, and even worse, people walking them all over the place, god It was horrible!!!!!!!! I quickly made a u-turn, leaving all that shouting and barking behind me  :-(

I spent an hour sitting on my skywatching seat back over at Migrant Alley, hoping for something new to flyover, maybe a Lapwing, Golden Plover or a Mute Swan, but it was not not to be today, I made do with the WOOD PIGEONS, ROOKS, JACKDAWS and CARRION CROWS, and the only PIED WAGTAIL of the day, perhaps the lack of anything flying over was due to the Shotguns going of every few minutes in a field just off patch - I'm getting that ''do I want to carry on with this patch'' feeling again :-(  

Just to confirm the worlds against me today, the sky was about 50/50 cloud and clear patches, but the sun spent virtually the whole time behind the clouds, making for poor photographic lighting, as shown in the only photo I took today. 

Redwing