Pittswood Birds

It was good to see a rarity over my patch today - the Sun!!  What a difference it makes to be able to see properly,  mind you after the heavy and persistent overnight rain it was a bit wet underfoot, all good for filling up the lakes, also the pits in the Wet Woods, I might yet get a Teal in there before the end of the winter, dogs permitting!

The three and a half hour full patch walk gave me another 5 bird species for the year list, the first of those was a GREYLAG GOOSE (45) that flew over the Lakes, it wasn't tempted down by the CANADA GOOSE that was already there though. A CORMORANT flew from the lake as I arrived, and a GREY HERON dropped in whilst I was there, but nothing more exciting than that was on the water.

After finding the regular species around the lake edges and Scrubby Woods I moved on to the Tree Nursery, Pub Field, Migrant Alley and the College Grounds, it was quite hard going to find birds in any great numbers, but a flyover STOCK DOVE (46) was the second bird added to the year list as I approached the Tree Nursery, where three MEADOW PIPITS (47) got up from the grassland, calling as they plopped back down again deeper into the field,  then both LESSER BLACK BACKED GULL (48) and SKYLARK (49) joined the year list as I walked the pasture and Paddocks at Migrant Alley, both flyovers.

I was entertained by SISKIN, GOLDFINCH, GREENFINCH, CHAFFINCH, GOLDCREST, LONG TAILED TIT, another Grey Heron, and 4 BULLFINCH, all in the College Grounds, those, with all the more common WRENS, DUNNOCK, ROBIN, BLACKBIRDS etc made this the most busy piece of habitat on my patch today, all down to the fact that the nearby Garden center and the College have been closed for the holidays :-)

On the way home a SPARROWHAWK flew over, making the list up to 42 species for the day, not too bad  :-) Just one more day left, then it's back to work for Wednesday, and then the less productive afternoon walks, looking at tomorrow weather, it looks doubtful for an early patch visit - Rain and Gales forecast, I'll hopefully get out at some point though!

Photo's today are a bit of a mixed bag, despite the sunshine, the sun wasn't high enough to lighten the subjects as I would of liked, but at least they brighten the page :-)

The low sun made these Bullfinch look orange breasted! I also had to try to manually focus, as the auto focus wouldn't do the job through all the branches!

Bullfinch

Goldfinch

Good old Robin again!