Pittswood Birds

Another fine and warm Autumn day was had today, but at 06:30hrs this morning it felt distinctly chilly, making it a late start for many bird species on my patch, just 18 species were seen as I walked over to the College Grounds, and this had only increased to 25 by the time I had walked back out into the paddocks and pasture of Migrant Alley.

Summer species had decreased again, as they will now, just a few CHIFFCHAFF were seen at the College Grounds, with one at the Greenhouse Grounds, and two more at the Scrubby Woods. BLACKCAP sightings were down to just one female bird at the Greenhouse Grounds and two males at the Scrubby Woods. There were still plenty of local SWALLOWS about though, and it was good to hear, if not see two single YELLOW WAGTAILS go over, one at the Tree Nursery, the other at Migrant Alley.

There was a TREECREEPER in full song at the Scrubby Woods, where a COAL TIT also sang, and with the likes of BULLFINCH, NUTHATCH and GOLDCREST also seen it wasn't too bad a visit here today, it got even better though when a scan of the adjacent lakes provided me with a year tick, a female SHOVELER DUCK (103 65) no less, a real scarce bird to find on the lakes, as is any kind of duck really! This is just the 3rd year that this species has been recorded, and moves me one more species closer to my target of 109 species for this year, which is the mean average for the previous 5 years.

Shoveler Duck - 103rd species for the year

I got up closer and took another few photo's, before leaving it to doze among the Lillies

By the visits end, I had tallied up a reasonable 43 species, helped by fly overs from GREY HERON, HERRING GULL, LESSER BLACKED BACKED GULL, plus the hundreds of GREYLAG and CANADA GEESE. Raptor today were sighted frequently, KESTREL, BUZZARD and SPARROWHAWK were the usual species, but one raptor stood out today, this was seen whilst I was at home having finished my walk, I was sky watching from my upstairs window, and got onto yet another OSPREY ( or maybe the same bird as yesterday)  Fantastic! This is the third Osprey sighting in four days, I see more Ospreys than Shoveler Ducks on my patch! The best thing is, this one goes on my ''seen from my house list'' which now stands at 93 species  :-)
This time I did take some very distant photo's, not good at all but you can see what it is  :-)

What a star patch bird - Osprey!

Osprey

Later this afternoon I had a quick check of the fence posts at Migrant Alley, but all were devoid of Wheatear or Whinchat, I did get some good views of a couple of Buzzards though, and got some ropey shots of them  :-)

Buzzard being mobbed by crow

Common Buzzard

PS: I was going to show the Chiffchaff photo's today, but with plenty of photographs from this morning, i'll keep yesterdays Chiffchaff photo's for another day :-)