Pittswood Birds

I had a relaxing couple of hours out on my patch this afternoon, it was a bit cooler than of late, and the sunless sky made it feel colder. I made my daily visit over to the lakes, but today I took a slightly longer route, along Ashes Lane in order to check out a field that has been sewn with a wildbird crop. Recent visits here on my full patch walks haven't turned up much out of the ordinary, but today there was a real change, as I scanned the crop, at least 30-40 YELLOWHAMMER flew up and scattered into the surrounding cover, one or two stayed in a nearby hedgerow, and looking down that hedgerow I spied my first two REED BUNTING (62) of the year. I was looking from quite a way off so there could have been more hiding up, I will have to investigate further tomorrow. When this field was last sewn, two years ago, a flock of 60+ Yellowhammer and 40+ Reed Bunting were recorded over the winter, to see one Reed Bunting on my patch is normally a rare occurrence, just goes to show how positive a bit of wildlife friendly management of the land can be  :-)

Anyway, the rest of the walk was not quite so exciting, the Small Holding had the local CHAFFINCH and GREENFINCH population in it, along with at least 3 GREEN WOODPECKERS, as well as an unseen but heard TREECREEPER.The lakes were not as productive as recent visits, just two MALLARDS, and singles of COOT and MOORHEN, the latter were heard but not seen :-) The surrounding Scrubby Woods were mostly silent, but a pair of BULLFINCH showed briefly.

Some effort was made to look around the Tree Nursery and view the Pub Field, however, in the growing colder conditions, little was to be found apart from a few BLACK HEADED GULLS, plus the odd WREN, DUNNOCK, BLACKBIRD and Tit species. The only bird of note seen over at the Greenhouse Grounds shortly after, was the local KESTREL, with a HERRING GULL and Yellowhammer flying over. A good start petered out a bit today, but it was some good exercise for me at least  :-)