Pittswood Birds

Early rain, sleet and snow only slowly cleared as the day progressed, leaving a drizzly, very dismal and dull afternoon.

The footpaths through the small Holding, leading to the Wet woods are now unusable, unless you have wellington boots ( which I havn't!)  the deep watery mud makes it hard to concentrate on anything but the next step, so little was noticed as I struggled through this afternoon.

Parts of the main footpath through the Wet Woods are also too deep in water to use, so an alternative path has to be taken,  but it was hardly worth the effort today, just a GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER and a pair of GREAT TITS were seen, mind you it was so dark in there I could have missed much more!

Over on the lakes the uninspiring afternoon visit continued, where only 1 MALLARD and a CORMORANT were seen with the COOT pair on the water. I made my way back out through the watery mud and out onto the Tree nursery, the ground is so saturated that even in the adjacent field of sheep pasture my footsteps caused the water to splash up. I took note of the KESTREL pair, which have returned from the Small holding to hunt here again, plus a few REDWING and FIELDFARE, maybe a dozen birds in all, and a couple of GREEN WOODPECKERS. By 15:00hrs I had had enough, the light was failing, the drizzle was falling and there was mud/water everywhere, oh for a fortnight of sunny frosty weather!!

Whilst back home drinking a hot brew, I watched my garden feeders for a while, where the most obvious visitors where the 13 LONG TAILED TITS, they were like moths around a light as they piled on to the fat logs  :-)  The Green Woodpecker continues to feed on the provided Apples, and a couple of Great Spotted Woodpeckers are also coming in, a pair of NUTHATCH, and a pair of COAL TITS are nice garden visitors, but the SISKIN pair made the afternoon for me, the 24th species to visit the feeders this month  :-)

No chance with the camera today, despite some really close views of all the above species, just too dark out there!