Pittswood Birds

After a hard frost the day turned out to be wall to wall sunshine, and by the time I got out this afternoon the warmth of the sun was quite noticeable, even though the temperature was only 3 degrees above freezing  :-)

Of course, all that frost would mean the lakes would be frozen over still, so I decided to head off around the Greenhouse Grounds and Migrant Alley, hoping for a fly over Skylark or Grey heron for the year list. At the Greenhouse Grounds there were about half a dozen SISKIN and a couple of LESSER REDPOLL in the Alders, below them in the bramble was a GOLDCREST, plus the regular WREN, DUNNOCK, ROBIN, BLACKBIRD and SONGTHRUSH. The KESTREL pair were both sat on the Greenhouses, and I'm sure they attempted to mate  :-)

A scan across the fields and paddocks of Migrant Alley had me finding the usual 50-60 ROOKS, a few JACKDAWS and at least 100 WOODPIGEON, but with them were 60-80 FIELDFARE and a few REDWING, better still a couple of LAPWING were also seen. I moved on to the Greenhouse Copse, and found the LITTLE OWL at roost, but not much else.

Little Owl

I returned to my seat at Migrant Alley and sat down to watch the sky, and low and behold a GREY HERON (61) flew across within 5 minutes of me being there  ;-) Unfortunately, I didn't get the Skylark though. Another 9 LAPWING flew over, plus a few single SISKIN and Lesser Redpoll, but the sky was cold and clear for the rest of my 30 minute watch.

The Grey heron takes the year list on to 61, which isn't too bad considering the recent poor weather and failed patch visits, 61 species is the 6th best January out of twelve, and still two weeks to go, the mean average total species found for the last 5 January's is 65, so i should at least reach that  :-)

Bonus photo's today - more of the Green woodpecker  :-)

Green Woodpecker

Green Woodpecker

Green Woodpecker

Green Woodpecker