Pittswood Birds

Not much patch watching was done today, the weather was dull, damp and windy, it was hopeless for finding any newly fledged young in the woods.

Seeing what Hadlow college are doing to the fields and campus that are part of my patch, I have decided to cut that part of it out of my studies, it will be a shame not to follow the fortunes of the Spotted Flycatcher pair that are at the College Campus, but they will probably have few years left there given the habitat loss that is happening there, the only other real loss will be the Kingfishers seen occasionally at the ponds there. I can at least retain the western part of Migrant Alley, although I dont think it will be the same there anymore  :-(

To compensate for the loss, I will adding an area of land to the North of my patch. It consists of arable fields, hedgerows and drainage ditches, as well as a small part of the River Bourne, which at this point is just a stream, also, part a lane will now be added, High House lane, which will be used to access the new part of my patch from the west. I spent this morning on a reconnaissance trip, checking out the footpaths, and although it looks as though parts of it are a dog walking area ( crap on the paths!)  I think if i'm out early enough i could avoid most of them  :-)

Anyway, the rest of my patch will remain the same. You can view the new patch area by clicking on the Bluebell photo in the top of the right hand margin of the page, the fields are at the top of the blue shaded area.

Whilst I was out, I passed through the Greenhouse Grounds and met one of the workers who told me there are young in the KESTREL box that is on the back of the Greenhouses, a place i haven't had access to in the past, but he said it would be ok for me to go and look any time I wanted - so I will  :-)

Only other thing of note whilst out was a hunting SPARROWHAWK  :-)

I look forward to see what turns up on the new part of my patch over the coming Autumn/winter.