Pittswood Birds

Todays full patch walk, in dull and overcast conditions, produced a reasonable tally of 41 species in a little over three hours.

Three of those species were new for the month, the first of which was a cracking KINGFISHER (48) which I watched devouring a small fish over at the lakes, where the COOT was still present, along with 14 MALLARDS and 4 MOORHENS. The Adjacent Scrubby Woods provided good views of the next new species, when 3 BULLFINCH (49) were seen feeding in an Ash tree.

I noted the presence of GOLDREST, NUTHATCH and two drumming GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER in the Wet Woods, but there wasn't any sign of Long Tailed Tits or Treecreepers today.

The Tree Nursery had 4 MEADOW PIPITS, 2 GREEN WOODPECKERS, plus a scattering of SONGTHRUSH, BLACKBIRD, DUNNOCK and of course the KESTREL pair up hunting. Nothing much of note around the Greenhouse Grounds today, so I quickly moved on to the College Grounds and it was here, on one of the small ponds, that a GREY HERON (50) flew up, taking the February list to 50 :-) The LONG TAILED TITS were also seen here, along with the only two SISKIN seen today. Song from MISTLE THRUSH, Dunnock, CHAFFINCH, GREENFINCH, ROBIN, WREN and Goldcrest is a reminder that spring marches ever closer, as is the gathering of 150 - 200 FIELDFARE on the sheep pasture at Migrant Alley, only a few weeks from now and they will become very scarce here.

The camera stayed at home today as the dark conditions this morning were useless for photography, I tried to get some garden bird shots this afternoon, but the light was still poor, here's the images that just about passed the delete button!

JAY

Its the Green Woodpecker again :-)  I keep putting out the apples, and he keeps on munching them, still it's been a life line for him this winter :-)

Very few finch's are visiting my garden, this GOLDFINCH was one of four seen