Pittswood Birds

My first full patch walk of March, and the 20th this year, was a very grey and misty one, with rain falling just as I was finishing. It was however quite a productive 3 and a half hours, with 47 species being seen, which could easily have topped the rarely achieved daylist total of 50, had the regular Kestrel, Jay, Coal Tit, and Nuthatch turned out.

Seven new species were found for the months list, the first was the YELLOWHAMMER (47) at least 20 of which fed in the bird crop along the western end of Ashes Lane. It was the lakes that provided another two new species, a GREY HERON (48) and the wandering BARNACLE GOOSE (49) that was with its CANADA GOOSE ''mate''.  Of note around the Scrubby Woods were a flock of 7 LESSER REDPOLL, 4 BULLFINCH, 2 GOLDCREST, a TREECREEPER, and a couple of REDWING. Walking back through the Wet Woods, a small flock of SISKIN dropped into an Alder tree, and the months first STOCK DOVE (50) was heard singing, bringing up the 50th species for March.

Migrant Alley proved quite productive this morning, with the months first SKYLARK (51), COMMON BUZZARD (52) and MEADOW PIPIT (53), the latter species being the first seen on a full patch walk since the 15th of February. Also at Migrant Alley were good numbers of FIELDFARE, at least 150 were feeding in the sheep pasture, with just a single Redwing amongst them, plus 75+ STARLINGS.

Not much was noted around the College Grounds, a flock of 23 BLACK HEADED GULLS were on the sports pitch, a MISTLE THRUSH was heard singing, and six GREYLAG GEESE flew over.

Around 13:30 the sun broke through, enticing me back out with the camera, I went over to see if I could get a photo of the Fieldfare flock, but found it had been replaced by a flock of 126 JACKDAWS and a few ROOKS!

Distant Jackdaws taking off

A PIED WAGTAIL was also photographed as I walked back home, not a species that I get on camera much.

Pied Wagtail

I also took a couple of photo's at my garden feeders, but i'll post them tomorrow, as it looks like being a wet and windy day, especially first thing  :-(