Pittswood Birds

There was some brightness in the sky whilst walking home from work this afternoon, tempting me to take the camera out for my walk over to the lakes, but the cloud soon thickened, and it became dull and dreary again, that put an end to any bird photography!! ( as I write this at 17:00hrs the sun appears!! grrrrrrr..........)

The Finch flock in the Small Holding wasn't there today, and just one GREEN WOODPECKER was seen there, looks like someone had already walked through before me, thats the trouble with afternoon visits! In the Wet Woods SISKIN were again heard up in the highest parts of an Alder Tree, and a GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER drummed from a large Oak, where the call of ''Nuthatch'' was heard, only it wasn't one, just a GREAT TIT trying to fool me with its very good mimicry, I still haven't seen or heard the Nuthatch this month, they must be getting down to the secretive work of breeding  :-)

A mixed batch of birds were on the lakes today, including GREY HERON, CORMORANT, CANADA GEESE, with the feral BARNACLE GOOSE, MALLARD, MOORHEN and the COOT pair, a busier place than normal! The surrounding Scrubby Woods only had BULLFINCH, TREECREEPER, GOLDCREST, LONG TAILED TIT and SONGTHRUSH, of note, some of which I had some good close encounters with, but the light was so poor, the camera could only muster some very slow shutter speeds, I tried for some photo's but they were immediately deleted.....rubbish!  Four PHEASANTS were flushed from a thick bank of bramble, the most seen on my patch this year, overhead a small flock of FIELDFARE went over calling, but generally the skies were empty today, no Gulls or Raptors were about.

Very little was seen as I walked through the Tree Nursery, not surprising for this time of day, and even less so at this time of year, it is the time of year though that the emphasis of my afternoon walks gradually shifts away from the lakes and woods, and more time gets spent around the paddocks, sheep pasture and fencelines of Migrant Alley, anticipating the first Wheatear maybe, or flyover hirundine, with just the chance of something more exciting ( for my patch) flying over or visit the paddocks, I did make a quick search here this afternoon but all I saw were these!!!

This lamb, barely in focus  :-)  looks as fed up as I was at the dreary conditions!

Tomorrow could well be a another disappointing day, looking at the weather, but we'll wait and see, you never know!