Pittswood Birds

A bit of interest from my walk in to work this morning was finding the first TREECREEPER fledglings of the year, at least two were being brought food as they hid in a shrub border at the College Grounds, also a tight flock of 48 BLACK HEADED GULLS flew over, a huge number for this area in June!

It was warm, humid and very sticky this afternoon, a bit of a breeze blew up whilst I was out, which brought variable amounts of cloud cover, but it stayed dry!  I walked the Tree Nursery looking for any signs of  the first Gatekeeper or Small Skipper Butterflies, but none have emerged just yet, instead the whole field was brimming with Meadow Browns, I would estimate a couple of hundred were in the 16 acres of Tree Nursery, the only other butterflies seen were a couple of Large Skippers, a bit disappointing given the fine weather, but I suppose the likes of Common Blue, Small Copper and Brown Argus are now in between broods. Lots of White-legged Damselflies were about, and a few Common Blue Damsels as well.

Up above me I heard a commotion as a HERRING GULL was frantically calling, it was mobbing a COMMON BUZZARD, a little later a long loose flock of at least 80 Herring Gulls were seen heading south, as well as two LESSER BLACK BACKED GULLS.

I spent just half an hour more out on my patch, looking over the Greenhouse Grounds where BLACKCAP, WHITETHROAT, LESSER WHITETHROAT and CHIFFCHAFF were all singing, a SKYLARK was also heard up over the sheep pasture in the adjacent Migrant Alley, and the SPARROWHAWK put in his daily visit, but no Kestrel today.

I was home by 16:00hrs, the reason being I thought it would be better to go out when it cools down this evening, I'll post tomorrow what I see later this evening!

Large Skipper

Meadow Brown

Common Blue Damsel

White-legged Damsel