Pittswood Birds

The run of unseasonably warm weather continued today, making for a very pleasant afternoon patch visit. It was more notable for Butterflies than birds though, and three new species were seen for the first time this year, first off was an Orange Tip, a lovely male specimen drifted along Ashes Lane as I walked towards the Tree Nursery, it was here that I found both Holly Blue and Small Tortoiseshell. All three of these species have emerged earlier than last year, the Orange Tip by 4 days and both the Holly Blue and Small Tortoiseshell by 6days.

First Small Tortoiseshell of the year, in not bad condition

Birds seen in the Tree Nursery were few, GREEN WOODPECKER being one of the few, but more noteworthy were the two MEADOW PIPITS that flew up and away NW, overhead, a SPARROWHAWK was circling high.

I spent over an hour at Migrant Alley, walking the pasture, paddocks and fence lines, looking for that elusive spring Wheatear, or maybe a flyover Swallow but both evaded me again. A few of the regular species kept me amused though as I wandered the nearby Greenhouse Grounds and the adjacent copse, LONG TAILED TITS, BLUE TITS, GREAT TITS, GREENFINCH, GOLDFINCH, CHAFFINCH and LINNET were all showing breeding intent, either singing on territory of actually nest building, a couple of PHEASANTS scared the life out of me as I tried sneaking up on the Long Tailed Tits for a photograph, exploding from just a foot in front of me, as they invariably do.

Blue Tit

A COMMON BUZZARD flew reasonable low over, giving me the chance of a photo, but with a smaller lens on again today, I couldn't quite get the detail on it, one of the ROOK flock also came unusually close, and got it's photo taken too  :-)

Common Buzzard

Common Buzzard

Rook, I couldn't quite see what it was feeding on, these birds must be having a hard time at the moment, with the weather so dry, the ground isn't giving up invertebrates easily

Rook

The regularly seen KESTREL was up hunting, and one of the LITTLE OWLS called from deep inside the Greenhouse Copse, that was pretty much it for the afternoon session, although i did take yet another WREN photo before heading home :-)

Another Wren!