Pittswood Birds

A new month, and the start of the February bird list gets underway  :-)  I'll be trying to beat the record February tally of 68, which was set last year, but I'll be happy enough to reach the mean total for the last 5 Febs which is at 64 species, the combined Feb species count for the 12 years is at 81, lets hope I find all those this month  :-)

The list kicked of as I walked to work in the dark and rain this morning, obviously not a lot was seen, but the likes of WOODPIGEON, COLLARED DOVE, BLACKBIRD, SONGTHRUSH, ROOK, JACKDAW, CARRION CROW, ROBIN and MISTLE THRUSH all turned out  :-)

The walk home through the College Grounds, Migrant Alley and Greenhouse Complex added a few more species, BLUE TIT, STARLING, MAGPIE, WREN, GREAT TIT, SISKIN, CHAFFINCH, KESTREL, GREENFINCH, DUNNOCK, GOLDCREST and BLACK HEADED GULL took me to 21 species.

Whilst eating lunch at home, I watched the garden feeders, this provided me with both GREEN and GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKERS, GOLDFINCH, COAL TIT and a flyover HERRING GULL, but I didn't watch for long and was soon out walking over to the Lakes via the Tree Nursery. The wind had died down considerably from the last few days, which made for a much more pleasant walk - despite the mud and puddles everywhere! However, even in the better conditions  just 7 species were added to the months list, the best being a COOT which had returned to the lakes, also 18 MALLARD were there, and a scattering of MOORHENS, but nothing more exciting today. The other species added this afternoon were PHEASANT, FIELDFARE, STOCK DOVE and JAY, bringing up a total of 33 species for the day, a little disappointing, but that leaves plenty to find on tomorrows full patch walk, in what we are promised will be sunny conditions!!!!!!

Nothing for the camera today  :-( and the ''blog photo folder'' has run dry again.