Pittswood Birds

A raw easterly wind blew in spits of rain this morning, and although it was cloudy, the general ''gloom'' of recent days had gone. With the change in weather, my full patch walk proved to be much more interesting of late.

A BUZZARD was seen drifting over as I watched the KESTREL pair hunting over the Tree Nursery, where at least 6 MEADOW PIPITS continued to forage. Over on the lakes there wasn't a thing on the water, apart from the COOT pair - a most unusual situation! The Scrubby Woods and Wet Woods between them, produced all that I would expect, the best being LONG TAILED TITS, COAL TIT, MARSH TIT, TREECREEPER, NUTHATCH, GOLDCREST, GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER and BULLFINCH.

Making my way over to the Greenhouse Grounds, the first of four new species for the year flew over, - a MUTE SWAN (57), good to get one on the year list, they can be hard to get here! On reaching the Greenhouse Grounds I found a nice flock of 25+ SISKIN in the Alders there, plus at least 3 LESSER REDPOLL.

Crossing Migrant Alley to get to the College Grounds, I counted no fewer than 263 FIELDFARE, but just 5 REDWING, these were supported by 100+ STARLINGS, plus 64 ROOKS. A small party of 11 BLACK HEADED GULLS were joined by the second new species for the year, when a COMMON GULL (58) was found amongst them, then just seconds later the year list was incremented again when the excellent sighting of 3 GREAT BLACK BACKED GULLS (59) was had, they flew over headed NW, I had just one record of this species last year, to get 3 today was quite something.

I added the usual characters over at the College Grounds and Gardens, the most noteworthy was seeing 2 GREENFINCH, the first seen away from my garden this year! Walking back towards home I checked out the Pub Field, and found 13 LAPWINGS (60) feeding there, very nice, that brings up 60 for the year  :-) A CORMORANT was noted flying over as I neared home, as was a LESSER BLACK BACKED GULL, quite a gull day today with 5 species being seen :-)

Obviously in the conditions the camera stayed at home, so here's some more of the garden shots from yesterday:

ROBIN, on the lookout for the Sprawk!

Robin again

More of the Marsh Tit

...and more of the COAL TIT  :-)