Pittswood Birds

A dense fog enveloped my patch first thing this morning, but once it cleared it left a decent amount of sunshine, with just a few bits of patchy cloud.

In all I spent a little over 8 hours out in the field, covering most parts of my patch, but concentrated mainly on the Scrubby Woods and Migrant Alley, however, despite all that time out, not one new spring migrant was seen  :-(

CHIFFCHAFFS, BLACKCAPS, SWALLOWS and just one WHITETHROAT are the only spring birds on my patch at the moment, other than than that the 49 species seen today were all the regular or semi regular species that can be found here.

I found a TREECREEPER nest in the Wet Woods, and watched the adult bring nesting material in, and I also watched a GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER excavating its nest hole. A SPARROWHAWK flew into the woods whilst I was there carrying a prey item, it called as it did so, and I may have identified its nest, I need to investigate further  :-)

Not much else to excite really, BUZZARD and KESTREL were the only other raptors seen, despite some long sky watching sessions, which produced HERRING and LESSER BLACK BACKED GULLS, as well as a YELLOWHAMMER of note. Two LITTLE OWLS were seen, one at the run off pool where a dead walnut tree supplies nest holes, the other was in the Small Holding, there could well be three pairs on my patch this year, as there is at least one bird in the Greenhouse Copse.

BULLFINCH, COAL TIT, LONG TAILED TIT, NUTHATCH, GOLDCREST, and the already mentioned Treecreeper all showed up today, they don't always oblige. Whilst on the lakes today there were 4 MOORHEN, 5 MALLARD 6 CANADA GEESE and 4 GREYLAG GEESE, as well as the COOT pair, with which I only saw one chick  -  lets hope the other two are also about somewhere.

There wasn't much for the camera today, I found a few Comma's and they obliged, but the only other butterflies were my first Small White this year, and another tantalizing fly past from a Brimstone!

Bluebells have just started to bloom in the Wet Woods

An 'old Comma' still awaiting the new batch  :-)

Greylag Goose on the lake

Greylag Goose