Pittswood Birds

The last patch visit of August was a full patch walk, which lasted 4 hours, the first two of which were deathly quiet under the cloudy skies and chilly NW wind, the latter two hours, although undertaken in clear blue skies, were little better  :-(

Most of the migrant birds had moved on from the Greenhouse Grounds, only around 20 SWALLOWS were seen, with just 2 WHITETHROAT and a CHIFFCHAFF. A KESTREL was watching from the raspberry poles, and a SPARROWHAWK sat on the Greenhouse Roofs, maybe that was why everything had moved on! The Sparrowhawk hung around the area all morning, keeping away most of the regulars, only a few GOLDFINCH and GREENFINCH with one or two BLUE and GREAT TITS stayed around.

Migrant Alley was also harassed by the Sparrowhawk, and nothing at all was on the paddocks and sheep pasture, even the STARLINGS and ROOKS had retreated to the overhead power cables and pylons.

As I crossed the Ashes Lane field to get to the Scrubby Woods, 2 YELLOW WAGTAILS flew over, probably the highlight of the day ( that and the LONG TAILED TITS that have just visited my garden as I write this!)

In the Scrubby Woods I found 2 BLACKCAPS and another Chiffchaff, a GOLDCREST called, as did a BULLFINCH, a NUTHATCH and a COAL TIT. On the adjacent lakes just MOORHENS and MALLARD were seen.

Walking through the Wet Woods I added STOCK DOVE to the days list, plus a GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER, the final bird on my list for today was a GREEN WOODPECKER which was found in the Small holding, that brought the days tally to just 39 species, an incredibly low total for August! Things will have to improve massively if I'm going to achieve tomorrows challenge of ''60 species in a day'' I may not even reach the species count achieved during the first attempt of my twice a year challenge, which I  carried out on May1st, if things don't improve, that day brought me 52 species.

So this month ended with a species total of 71, which is the fourth best August tally out of twelve and two species less than the average August tally for the previous 5 years. There were 3 species found this August that have not occurred in any other, the Snipe, the Crossbill and the Nightingale, they bring the combined twelve year August tally up to 94 species. It was disappointing not to find a Turtle Dove, this is the first August that this massively declining species has not been seen here.

I hardly got to use the camera at all today, except for a few tatty butterfly shots, so here they are, plus a few more shots of the Reed warbler I found the other day  :-)

Common Blue

Small Copper

Reed Warbler

Reed Warbler

Reed Warbler