Pittswood Birds

Awaking to find yet another very wet and windy morning, I decided to postpone my full patch walk, waiting instead for the forecasted clearance to arrive, which it did around 10:00hrs, but it remained windy still.

I spent just 2 hours walking over to the College Grounds, via the Greenhouse Complex and Migrant Alley, but at that time of morning and with a gale blowing, there little to see. The most noteworthy birds were the mixed flock of SWIFTS, HOUSE MARTINS and SWALLOWS feeding on the lee side of the Greenhouse Copse, obviously this is where all the insects were sheltering from the wind.

The Greenhouse Copse

One of the 40-50 Swifts

Walking across Migrant Alley, a good scan of the sky was had, no Harriers today, just KESTREL, SPARROWHAWK, HERRING GULL, and LESSER BLACK BACKED GULL, plus more Swifts, I suspect they are feeding up and putting on weight for the journey back to Africa, they will be going early this year I suspect.

Over at the College Grounds, it was very quiet, a couple of GREEN WOODPECKERS were watched as they faced up to each other, BLACKCAP and CHIFFCHAFF sang, and the regular common birds were about in small numbers.

Chiffchaff

PIED WAGTAIL

The only butterfly seen today was this Red Admiral, sheltering on a sunny spot of hedgerow out of the wind

Red Admiral

With the weather forecast looking a bit more settled this week hopefully some more Butterflies will emerge, i've yet to find Small Skipper, Gatekeeper and Purple Hairstreak, which are the final three species that I would expect be seen on my patch this summer.

Just one more full patch walk left for the month now, and the June bird list is on 63, which puts it in joint sixth place out of eleven, and it just about reaches the eleven year mean species tally for June. The year list needs just 2 more additions to reach the magic 100, fingers crossed for another couple of good flyover species  :-)

Recently fledged BLUE TIT on my garden feeder