Pittswood Birds

Four inches of snow had fallen overnight, so rather than struggle round the whole of my patch, I decided just to visit Migrant Alley for a skywatch, along with the Greenhouse Complex and the drainage ditch at the NW boundary of my patch.

An icy Ashes lane

Walking along Ashes lane, just a few species showed themselves in the icy conditions, ROBIN, JACKDAW, WOODPIGEON, MAGPIE, and a couple of flyover GOLDFINCH.

A view over the Greenhouse Grounds, towards the Greenhouse Copse

Snowy Silver Birch

Once at the Greenhouse Grounds, it was still relatively quiet, a GOLDCREST called from a nearby evergreen tree, and COLLARD DOVES could be heard, along with GREAT TITS, a few BLACKBIRDS scampered around beneath the tall hedge, looking for whatever they could to eat, while above them a WREN sang loudly and two BLUE TITS scolded me from the uppermost twigs. I scanned the whiteness of the sheep pasture, and heard then saw two SKYLARK (52), the first this month, very welcome they are too  :-)

Before my skywatching session, I walked over to the nearby drainage ditch than runs along the NW border of my patch, I new what I was after, and straight away found it, a COMMON SNIPE (64,53) the first this year, a difficult species to get on my patch, unless its cold and snowy!

View over the drainage ditch looking NW

After that little success, I headed back to my position next to my seat at Migrant Alley, the seat was of course unusable, with 4 inches of snow on it, so I stood and watched the grey skies, which tured out to be quite eventful. I had one each of REDWING and FIELDFARE, and a single LESSER BLACK BACKED GULL (54) was the first this month, the local KESTREL showed up as well, it was good to see it was carrying a large prey item  :-) Two COMMON GULLS were a good species to find, they went over with a few HERRING and BLACK HEADED GULLS, then the first of two flocks of LAPWING flew over, 18 went SW followed by a further 47, the second flock were closely followed by 6 GOLDEN PLOVER (55) brilliant! Another Feb. species, and another good bird to have here  :-)

After an hour and a half I was beginning to get a bit cold! I stuck at it for another half hour and was rewarded with my first PIED WAGTAILS (56) of the month, 6 MEADOW PIPITS, a SPARROWHAWK and a JAY. By 10:00 I was in need of a hot brew and headed home, a short visit but a very rewarding one.

Sparrowhawk going over

Once home I watched the feeders, which were a frenzy of activity, 20 species came in to feed, the best being a lovely Male BULLFINCH, plus a SONGTHRUSH, and an old friend not seen since the snow of 2010, a MOORHEN!!   I took lots of garden photo's this morning, i'll post them through this week  :-)

View from my upstairs birdwatching window, looking South

Bullfinch

Bullfinch

PS: A short afternoon visit back over to the Greenhouse Grounds was a good move, as a LESSER REDPOLL (57) was found amongst a flock of 24 Goldfinch, feeding in Alder, the months list is racing along now!