Pittswood Birds

Rain fell intermittently throughout todays full patch walk, making it quite a miserable 3 and a half hours out, however, the good tally of 47 species that were found made it a worthwhile walk. Only one new species was found for the months list, a COMMON GULL (62) which was feeding amongst at least 120 BLACK HEADED GULLS in sheep pasture at Migrant Alley, taking the March total to 62, which puts it in 6th place so far out of the eleven years, but still 9 species behind the record total of 71, set in 2010. In one of the nearby paddocks 2 LESSER BLACK BACK GULLS were seen, while the fourth Gull species for the morning HERRING GULL was seen flying over. Also at Migrant Alley were a couple of singing SKYLARKS, a calling CHIFFCHAFF at the wooded headland was one of two seen today, the other was a singing bird at the Scrubby Woods.

On the lakes today there were 6 CANADA GEESE, 4 MOORHEN, 6 MALLARD, a GREY HERON and a CORMORANT, as well as the pair of MANDARIN DUCKS that were seen yesterday. Whilst there, 7 FIELDFARE flew over, and 2 LESSER REDPOLL were seen in a Silver Birch. The only other winter species seen today were REDWINGS 1 was in the Small Holding, while another 4 were seen in the Wet Woods. Raptors today were represented by just the one SPARROWHAWK.

Not a great deal of change going on then so far, I didn't find Treecreeper, Nuthatch or Coal Tit today, but BULLFINCH, YELLOWHAMMER and LINNET did show up to make up for them, nest building was seen to be underway by MISTLE THRUSH, CARRION CROW, LONG TAILED TIT and DUNNOCK, and I suspect the Canada Geese and Coots on the lakes are making the first tentative attempts at doing the same  :-)

Not a day for the Camera today, but I did snap this male CHAFFINCH that was singing just outside my study window.  :-)

Chaffinch