Pittswood Birds

A bit of a grey old afternoon today, with just the odd hint of brightness now and then, but at least it stayed dry :-).

I spent 2 hours wandering various parts of my patch this afternoon, but failed to find anything new for the year or months list, a flyover Cormorant would be most likely for the latter, while Grey wagtail for the year list wouldn't be unusual for a February day, they may turn up tomorrow though, as i'll be out most of the day  :-)

I did see some interesting birds while out none-the-less, three raptors were up hunting, the KESTREL over its usual Greenhouse Grounds, while both COMMON BUZZARD and SPARROWHAWK drifted over the Wet Woods. A GREY HERON flew over low, heading towards the Lakes, but they were still about 80% frozen, the only open water was under the overhanging trees, no ducks were there, just a couple of MOORHENS.

The Scrubby Woods gave me good views of the familiar woodland birds to be found here, COAL and LONG TAILED TITS, BULLFINCH, NUTHATCH, TREECREEPER and GOLDCREST all turned out, they dont always on the same visit !

The Sheep pasture and paddocks at Migrant Alley had a few BLACK HEADED GULLS, ROOKS, JACKDAWS and WOODPIGEONS, with the odd MISTLETHRUSH, SONGTHRUSH and REDWING making forays onto a paddock from the wooded headland. FIELDFARE were again obvious as they flew over in small flocks, 40-50 birds in all. A quick scan of the Greenhouse Grounds for the Meadow Pipit flock was had, but they seem to have moved on again, just two GREEN WOODPECKERS were of note here today.

Photo's today are from my garden, but the light was very poor, not bad efforts though  :-)

Male GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER. If you look carefully in this photo and the one below you can see the remains of the red feathering on it's cap, they were Juvenile feathers, indicating that this bird was hatched last spring.

Great Spotted Woodpecker

GREAT TIT

DUNNOCK

WREN