Pittswood Birds

Another fantastic blue sky to greet me this morning, although there was a bit of a 'fly in the ointment' from 07:00hrs to 07:45hrs when cloud rolled in, before it burnt off again in the warm sunshine  :-)

Most of the 4 hours out this morning was spent around the College Grounds, Migrant Alley and the Greenhouse Grounds, although later in the morning I paid a visit to the edge of the Wet Woods to look for Damsels.

The LITTLE OWL was sitting on the Greenhouse Roof as I passed through the grounds there, also seen was a BLACKCAP and the WHITETHROAT pair that hold territories in the bramble thickets. A flock of 40-50 STARLINGS were using the boundary hedgerow that divides Migrant Alley from the Greenhouse Grounds, at least 30 of those were newly fledged, I reckon there were ten, maybe twelve families, a good start from them  :-)

Also at Migrant Alley was the mixed flock of LINNET and GOLDFINCH, along with the CANADA GEESE, GREYLAG GEESE and feral BARNACLE GOOSE. Another Whitethroat was heard to sing at the Wooded Headlands, as well as another Blackcap and a CHIFFCHAFF.

Greylags at Migrant Alley

My main reason for going to the College Grounds was to try and get a photo of the SPOTTED FLYCATCHER, its been hard to see recently but today I was fortunate to see both the male and female bird, although by now the cloud had rolled in and the light was poor, resulting in some very slow shutter speeds, I got a reasonable image in the end though.

Spotted Flycatcher

Spotted Flycatcher

An hour on my seat watching the sky produced 4 Raptor species - one of the PEREGRINES, one each of KESTREL and SPARROWHAWK, plus two BUZZARDS. Two LESSER BLACK BACKED GULLS also went over, as well as four HERRING GULLS, but that was about it really, apart from 4 HOUSE MARTINS that flew through.

My trek along the edge of the Wet Woods later in the morning resulted in a few Azure Damsels being found, and also a possible immature White-legged Damsel and the odd Large Red, the Large Red below was photographed in my garden yesterday  :-) I got lots of photo's for the 'Blog Folder' they should keep me going for when the weather turns again!

Large Red Damsel

Large Red Damsel

Large Red Damsel

Immature White-legged Damsel

 Immature White-legged Damsel

 I stole the idea of this pose from Mr. heath, (see his excellent blog, http://marcheath.blogspot.co.uk/) only I've not quite executed the image as well as he did  :-)