Pittswood Birds

A two hour patch visit this afternoon, under heavy grey clouds, produced little of note, with much being unchanged from recent visits. Over at Migrant Alley 24 CANADA GEESE were on the sheep pasture, 20+ SWALLOWS fed low over their heads, and the regular ROOKS, JACKDAWS and WOODPIGEONS were spread throughout the paddocks, long scans of the turf and fence lines for a Wheatear or Yellow Wagtail proved fruitless, but any day now I expect something through. Last year I had already had two August Wheatear sightings by now, but then again in 2010 I had no sightings of Wheatear until the 13th August, which was the first of six sightings of single birds.

A walk through the Greenhouse Complex was undertaken, where BLACKCAP, WHITETHROAT and CHIFFCHAFF were all seen, I don't think they will be around much longer, they will start their migration south soon, then to be replaced by passage birds stopping off to feed on the plentiful Elder Berries here.

I finished up with a walk through the wheat crop in the Pub field, and a circuit of the Tree Nursery which was very quiet, just a fly over COMMON BUZZARD was of any great interest. Nearing home as I walked along Ashes Lane, I at last added HOUSE MARTIN (54) to the months list, when half a dozen birds flew over, also noted were 8 SWIFT over the Greenhouses and flyovers from both HERRING and LESSER BLACK BACKED GULL.

The house Martin is getting a pretty scarce bird here these days, it once bred over at the College Grounds, on the older buildings, but none do so now after they were refurbished and the buildings were longer suitable to hold their nests. When I first started watching my patch, House Martins were seen on 42.3% of full patch visits,  so far this year they have been seen on just 23.6% of visits.

I left the camera at home today, as the light was so poor this afternoon, but here's a few garden bird photo's that I took late yesterday afternoon at my feeders  :-)

COLLARED DOVE

Collared Dove

NUTHATCH

GOLDFINCH

GREAT TIT