Pittswood Birds

I only had a short patch visit early on, as I had some business to attend this morning. It was very pleasant out, with almost full cloud cover, but totally windless and warm with it.

I did my usual trip through the Greenhouse Grounds, had a look through the Greenhouse Copse, did a circuit of the sheep pasture, paddocks and Wooded Headland at Migrant Alley and lastly, checked the Ashes lane field where the LITTLE OWL was observed snoozing on it's favoured perch.

At the Greenhouse Grounds the WHITETHROATS were very obvious again, the adults feeding their young, both BLACKCAP and CHIFFCHAFF gave a burst of their respective song, but only once. At least 2 of the young KESTRELS were seen, with both adults in the area tending to them. In the Greenhouse Copse another Little Owl called, as did a TREECREEPER, there were at least 4 Chiffchaff in there too.

The Wooded Headland at Migrant Alley was particularly quiet, only the WREN, DUNNOCK, ROBIN and WOODPIGEON were heard to sing here and yet another Chiffchaff gave its Autumn ''hueet'' call. Out on the pasture and paddocks, just 5 GREYLAG and 11 CANADA GEESE were grazing, they were in company with the crowd of ROOKS, JACKDAWS and CARRION CROWS, plus a few LINNETS and GOLDFINCH, while up on the overhead power cables there were 24 SWALLOWS perched.

A 40 minute Sky watch was had over at my seat, which again produced a HOBBY, plus a couple of groups of HERRING GULLS and a LESSER BLACK BACKED GULL. A SKYLARK was up singing, and as I searched for it through my binoculars, I saw two BUZZARDS higher up, and a score of SWIFTS.

Later in the day, I headed off out to have a Butterfly hunt at the Greenhouse Grounds, as the sun was out now and it had turned very warm. This proved a good visit, as i found my first Small Copper of the year, albeit a bit tatty, and also my first Brown Argus for the year, these take the Butterfly species count for the year on my patch to 22.

I of course tried to get some photo's of the newly arrived Butterfly species, concentrating more on the Brown Argus, which I think is a male, as it was less tatty!

Brown Argus

Brown Argus, one of my favourite Flutters  :-)

Brown Argus

Brown Argus underwing, looks like a bit of wear on it

Brown Argus underwing

Small Copper, tatty, but another of my favourites. It disappeared after this record shot.

Small Skipper, these were everywhere, I'm sure some are Essex Skippers though  :-)