Pittswood Birds

I had a couple of hours out this morning, mainly over at the Scrubby Woods and lake area to see if I could find any more new breeding evidence. It was humid and windless first of all, making it feel quite pleasant, but by midday the rain had set in for the afternoon, only clearing as I write this at 17:10  :-(

Whilst at the Scrubby Woods, a TURTLE DOVE sang, as did a few CHIFFCHAFFS and BLACKCAPS, but the only recently fledged young that were found were of the already noted SONGTHRUSH, ROBIN, WREN, DUNNOCK, BLUE and GREAT TIT. A bit of a surprise was seeing a Painted Lady butterfly, only the third species of butterfly recorded this month, and the 16th of the year. On the adjacent lakes there were 3 MALLARD, 2 MOORHEN, 7 CANADA GEESE and the feral BARNACLE GOOSE, just one adult COOT was seen feeding both youngsters, I wonder if the other is on eggs again ?


After failing to find any new species for the years breeding list, I walked over to the Tree Nursery, where I found some Damselfly on the wing, White-Legged and Common Blue I think,

White -Legged Damselfly - female

White-Legged Damselfly - male

Common Blue Damselfly 

Also, seen feeding amongst the vegetation and grasses were two more Turtle Doves, plus 4 STOCK DOVES, the usual 2 GREEN WOODPECKERS and a pair of WHITETHROATS that showed well.  I spent half an hour looking around the Greenhouse Grounds, where I did find a new breeding species for the year, the LINNET, both adult birds were feeding a newly fledged youngster. Flyovers whilst out today included HERRING GULL, and lots of SWIFTS, two BUZZARDS circled high, and the KESTREL was up hunting.

Depending on the the weather, which is meant to be pretty stormy tomorrow, I'll do a full patch walk first thing in the morning - until then here's a couple of photo's of a JAY that visited my garden this morning.

Jay

Jay