Pittswood Birds

The early rain cleared by 07:00hrs, and remnants of the cloud associated with it moved away eastwards a couple of hours later, leaving some nice sunshine for the latter part of my full patch walk.

An early visit to the lakes was of mixed fortunes, as their were no wildfowl there, except the two MALLARDS and the long staying COOT, but on the plus side a KINGFISHER was seen, and a  flyover GREY WAGTAIL (50) which announced itself with its high pitch call, bringing the months species total to 50. In the adjacent Scrubby Woods JAY, BULLFINCH, NUTHATCH, GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER, and GOLDCREST were heard, before a SPARROWHAWK came through putting everything to cover.

Leaving the lakes area and heading to the Tree Nursery and Pub Field, the first GREY HERON (51) of the month was seen to fly over, also recorded flying over were SISKIN, REDPOLL, YELLOWHAMMER, BLACK HEADED, and HERRING GULL, as well as the first November LESSER BLACK BACKED GULL (52). Just two MEADOW PIPITS were the only noteworthy species found at the Tree Nursery.

A walk over to the College Grounds produced the regular species for the mornings list, MISTLE THRUSH, LONG TAILED TIT, GOLDFINCH, SONG THRUSH, PIED WAGTAIL were the species seen but not already on that list.

A forty minute sky watch from my seat at Migrant Alley in some warm sunshine was quite productive, with a pair of KESTRELS seen hunting over the Greenhouse Grounds, also FIELDFARE, SKYLARK, and another RING NECKED PARAKEET (53), only the second in 2 years, were all seen flying over, a very high CORMORANT (54) was also seen and added to the months list  :-)

Whilst at my seat I heard a LITTLE OWL call from the nearby Greenhouse Copse, so went to investigate, I didn't hold out much hope of actually seeing it, but i surprised myself when I did actually find it perched up in cover, it was a particularly pale looking bird - as you can see :-)

'Pale' Little Owl

Other images taken today were these distant Redpoll seen at the Greenhouse Grounds, I still cant get a nice close photo of this species!

Lesser Redpoll

Lesser Redpoll

Also...........

Wren