Pittswood Birds

Looking SW from the Wooded headland at Migrant Alley

Again, early cloud this morning soon burnt off, and by 08:30 it was warm and sunny with a bit of a breeze blowing.

The 5 hour patch visit wasn't as productive as yesterday, but I cant complain with 46 species being recorded, one of those, the HOUSE MARTIN (59) was new for this month, putting this July's list in joint second last place with July 2003, but with still two thirds of July to go, that should improve a little  :-)

Whilst taking the photo above, I could hear song from SKYLARK, BLACKCAP, CHIFFCHAFF, WHITETHROAT and BLACKBIRD, the pasture to the left of the photo had 12 GREYLAG GEESE feeding on it, along with many ROOKS and JACKDAWS, a fair proportion of them being immature birds. Overhead, as I watched the sky from my seat a few hundred meters away, the regular three Raptor species were seen up hunting, KESTREL, SPARROWHAWK and BUZZARD, also seen were HERRING and BLACK HEADED GULL as well as a GREY HERON and the already mentioned House Martins, of which there were 4.

A couple of hours of the visit was spent around the Scrubby Woods, looking for evidence of Successful breeding, i'm still to find young for the likes of Green Woodpecker or Collared Dove, I know they breed here, but I failed to locate any fledglings again.

This afternoon I took a break the work I was doing to improve my garden for the wildlife, and tried to get some images of the birds that use one of my small ponds, it's all a bit shadowy at that end of the garden, and against what light there is but I got a few images  :-)

Immature BLACKBIRD

Immature GREAT TIT

Female CHAFFINCH

A host of Immature BLUE TITS

Immature Blue Tit

Immature Blue Tit

GOLDFINCH, GREENFINCH, STARLING, HOUSE SPARROW and ROBIN also visited the pond, not bad for a one meter square water feature, it certainly attracts more species than the grazed wastelands pictured at the top of the post!