Pittswood Birds

Broken cloud this morning made for a brighter patch visit, a visit that was necessarily short, and one which proved frustrating.

I spent a little over two hours from 06:15hrs checking the Greenhouse Grounds and Migrant alley, the latter had little to offer on the sheep pasture and paddocks apart from the flock of 150+ STARLINGS, and the gathering of ROOKS and JACKDAWS, but the Greenhouse Grounds had a whole host of birds amongst the scrub and hedges. It proved frustrating however, as the fruit pickers were working there, and continually flushed the birds out of cover and off into the distance. I had a few chances to see what popped up though, and it was nice to see a WILLOW WARBLER, at least 8 WHITETHROATS, 4 BLACKCAPS, 3 CHIFFCHAFFS and my first SPOTTED FLYCATCHER (66) of the month, but I left with the feeling that something much better had been missed!

With the migrant species were the usual regular species, which had increased in numbers, especially SONGTHRUSH and BLACKBIRD, many of those immature birds. GOLDFINCH, GREENFINCH and CHAFFINCH were about in small numbers, and the BLUE and GREAT TITS made use of the now ripening Blackberries and Elderberries. An adult and an immature KESTREL were seen, and another family party of SWALLOWS were sat on a fencline.

Flyovers from LESSER BLACK BACKED and HERRING GULLS, as well as a SPARROWHAWK were noted, and once again over 200 geese flew low over, mostly GREYLAGS with fewer CANADA'S.

I'm looking forward to tomorrows full patch walk, things now look to be on the move :-)

Immature Kestrel at the Greenhouse Grounds

Immature Kestrel

I took lots of photo's of the Swallow family

They can be very trusting sometimes

Allowing quite close approach

The adult above soon gave an alarm call though, and they all took flight