Pittswood Birds

Once again I spent the early part of the morning mooching around the Wet Woods, Scrubby Woods and lake areas of my patch, trying to find those newly fledged young birds.

The weather was warmer than yesterday, with very little wind, but the price for that was the light rain, still nowhere near a proper June morning though  :-(

I had no success tracking down any recently fledged birds, but I did find my target species for the morning in the Wet Woods, when I finally saw my first NUTHATCH'S (60) of the month, a pair were collecting food for their young, which should be fledging anyday now. Watching and waiting in the Scrubby Woods, I heard and saw a pair of TREECREEPERS, also a pair of GOLDCRESTS collecting food, but neither showed me to their youngsters, a COAL TIT was singing loudly, and the slightly warmer morning encouraged a bit more song from the CHIFFCHAFFS and BLACKCAPS, of which both species were also seen carrying food for nestlings.

Eventually I made my way over to the Greenhouse Grounds, where the KESTREL and LITTLE OWL were sharing the habitat there for hunting. I heard the COMMON WHITETHROAT singing again, hopefully they will have a nest full of young here somewhere.

I had an hour sky watching from my seat looking over Migrant Alley, and saw a SPARROWHAWK fly over carrying what looked like a young STARLING, highlight of the day though goes to a cracking male HOBBY (61) that flew through, my first this month.  :-)

At last the June species tally breaks through the 60 barrier, it will be hard to add many more, maybe i'll see one of the local Peregrines later in the month, the likes of Lapwing or Cormorant cant be ruled out entirely either. Previous June lists have always benefited from Cuckoo, Garden Warbler and Lesser Whitethroat, but with those species only passing through here this year, the June tally will struggle to reach the 11 year mean average of 64 species, the mean average for the past five years is 66 species, not much chance of that being reached I think!

Once again the weather made it pointless to take the camera out, and i'm down to the last few images, these were taken in my garden last week - so enjoy them, they could be the last for a while!

Collared Dove

Collared dove

Great Spotted Woodpecker

I also found these lurking in the 'Blog folder' Not seen on my patch, but not that far away from it  :-)

Slow Worm

Slow Worm