Pittswood Birds

Once again the weather affected the full patch walk, rain curtailing the visit to just 2 and a half hours, leaving little time to look properly through the Small Holding, Wet Woods and Lake area, which only added COOT, MALLARD, BULLFINCH and NUTHATCH to the 41 species seen earlier  in the morning, just 45 species, a poor tally for a July visit.

Earlier in the morning under grey, heavy skies, a continuous passage of  BLACK HEADED GULLS and SWIFTS were noted as I walked over to the College Grounds, via the Greenhouse Complex and Migrant Alley, the Gulls in sporadic groups of 6 - 10, while the swifts were moving through on a broad front, widely spaced, around 75 - 100 birds in all.

Once at the College Grounds I looked for the SPOTTED FLYCATCHER family, but only found two adults, have the young succumbed to the awful summer weather I wonder? They may just have been secreted away, sheltering in the nearby large Lime tree, I couldn't find them if they were  :-(  The SWALLOW young were less in number too, just 3 young were at the College Stables as I passed. The immature  GREEN WOODPECKER seen on one of the gassy areas, seemed to be coping well enough in the wet conditions, this is only the second young one i've seen this summer. A TURTLE DOVE was also seen, sitting on a bench taking in the view as it sang  :-)

Turtle Dove, just about as close as you get to one on my patch, I also got a distant photo of one here last summer, I wonder if it was the same bird  :-)

Immature Green Woodpecker

The summer species were few in number, with little song being heard, just a lone BLACKCAP sang, while the CHIFFCHAFFS and WHITETHROAT called or scolded at me. Four HOUSE MARTINS were the only other summer birds noted today.

I tried to do another visit around 11:00am, but that was cut short again by persistent heavy showers, although during a 10 minute dry spell I did watch the KESTREL family out hunting, as well as a SPARROWHAWK, and the first two BUZZARDS (57) of July took advantage of the short break to stretch their wings high over the Tree Nursery, the months species list of 57 is still yet to break into the top ten of July species lists!