Pittswood Birds

The weather was much better than of late, being cold, clear and frosty this morning, allowing for a full patch walk, my first proper patch visit since Tuesday.

Although a rather low species count of 40 was achieved, I did find some good species for my patch in the 3 and a half hour visit, the first was a bit of a surprise when an overwintering male BLACKCAP (63) was seen, it was feeding in an apple tree which is in a large garden that backs onto the Small Holding, GREAT TIT, BLUE TIT, BLACKBIRD and REDWING were seen in the same tree.

I watched 8 CANADA GEESE fly over as I entered the Wet Woods, where JAY, GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER, GOLDCREST, and TREECREEPER were found. On the Lakes the MUTE SWAN and KINGFISHER kept up their almost daily sighting, but only MALLARD and a couple of Moorhen were with them today. I spent some time in the Scrubby Woods searching for the regular woodland species, and found most of them, BULLFINCH, CHAFFINCH, GOLDFINCH, COAL TIT, SONGTHRUSH, DUNNOCK, WREN, ROBIN, GREEN WOODPECKER, MISTLETHRUSH were all added to my mornings list, plus flyovers from LESSER REDPOLL, SISKIN, PIED WAGTAIL, SKYLARK, BLACK HEADED and HERRING GULL were all noted. As I made my way out of the Scrubby Woods I disturbed the bird of the day, a WOODCOCK (64), a brilliant find for my patch, this species is a rare visitor indeed, and although I have recorded it once or twice every year since 2009, the preceding 7 years saw no records at all.

The second half of the walk, across the Ashes Lane Field, Pub Field, the paddocks and Pasture of Migrant Alley, plus a look through the Greenhouse Grounds and the associated Greenhouse Copse, produced just two new species for the mornings tally, those being the ROOKS on the pasture, and a flock of LONG TAILED TITS at the Greenhouse Grounds. Species such as Nuthatch, Greenfinch, Pheasant, Stock Dove, Fieldfare, Meadow Pipit, Sparrowhawk, and Little Owl could have all been expected on the list today, as well as the normally daily sighting of the Kestrel, but all these species avoided detection this morning, if found though, a tally nearer 50 would have been possible. I cant complain though, the two new species for the month were nice to find, and the November list now sits in joint 4th position out of 12  :-)

The camera got an outing today, but only this distant Songthrush obliged for me.

Songthrush, seen in the Wood pile at the Greenhouse Grounds

The same wood pile that is slowly being burned, lots of it left though!

This afternoon I had a go at getting some images of the garden birds at my feeding station back home, I got lots of Goldfinch shots, a few Blue Tit, and Great Tits, plus Nuthatch, Robin and Starling, all of which will brighten up the blog posts during the coming days. Here's a few Goldfinch to start of with  :-)

Goldfinch

These are by far the most numerous species at the feeders.

Blogger is still making a mess of the background  :-(