Pittswood Birds

A later than planned patch visit was had today, due to the rain and wind early on, but by 09:00hrs the rain had abated, and by 10:00hrs the sky had turned blue, allowing some sunshine for the rest of the day  :-)

Being late out I didn't expect much over at the Lakes today, but I was pleasantly surprised, it seems the poor weather early on had kept everyone indoors and the place was undisturbed, with the likes of GREY HERON (53) and MANDARIN DUCK (54), of which there were two pairs, being found for the months list, as well as the now almost daily sighting of KINGFISHER and CORMORANT, plus the regular MALLARDS and MOORHENS.

Winter Thrushes were few, with just four REDWING being seen in the Scrubby Woods, otherwise it was very subdued here, only GOLDCREST being found of the more scarcer woodland species, not a single Bullfinch was recorded, that after finding at least 8 yesterday.

There was still some excitement left for the visit, later, as I walked a circuit of Migrant Alley I saw a flock of Gulls on the distant paddock, so I made my way over to check them out in detail and maybe get a photo or two, unfortunately they were all flushed up by a party of ''students'' from the college before I got there, most of the Gulls flew off, but 20-30 settled back down on another paddock, allowing me a better, but still distant scan of them, all but one turned out to be BLACK HEADED GULLS, but the one that wasn't, was a MEDITERRANEAN GULL (55), a brilliant species for November, the first I have ever recorded in any November in fact  :-)

Just to top the morning off nicely, during my sky watch I saw a PEREGRINE (56) fly high over towards Hadlow Village, alighting on the tower there, also seen from my seat were SPARROWHAWK and KESTREL, but very few MEADOW PIPITS and SKYLARK went over today.

The November list has now reached 56, and already sits in 7th place out of twelve, and a dozen species behind the best November tally, but I think adding further species this month will get difficult now, I can expect Fieldfare, and probably Greylag Goose, but after that who knows!

Despite all that lovely sunshine, I didn't get a single bird photo, sometimes its like that though, however, I did get some fortune yesterday afternoon when this Sparrowhawk visited my garden :-)

Sparrowhawk

I was lucky enough to get it sitting right on my photographic perch

 Just 6m away, but the perch is in the shade at that time in the afternoon

Which meant the best shutter speed I could get was only a 40th of a second

But apart from a bit of detail loss, I'm quite pleased at the results  :-)