Pittswood Birds

At last a proper winters day, wall to wall sunshine, no wind and a frost, so I, with a friend today, made the most of it with a five and a half hour patch visit.

The longer than normal visit produced a good species tally for the day, in all 48 were found, but frustratingly none of those were new for the December list. It was good to record all the thrush species today, MISTLE THRUSH, SONG THRUSH, BLACKBIRD and the two winter thrushes FIELDFARE and REDWING all showed up.

Blackbird

Blackbird

Three raptor species were seen up hunting during the visit, those being KESTREL, SPARROWHAWK and BUZZARD, also this LITTLE OWL was found in the Greenhouse Copse.

Little Owl

Little Owl

On the lakes today, the MUTE SWAN pair were again present, as was a pair of MANDARIN DUCKS, also a KINGFISHER, a CORMORANT and the usual MALLARDS and MOORHENS were seen. The adjacent Scrubby Woods provided plenty of the Tit and Finch species BLUE TIT, GREAT TIT, COAL TIT, CHAFFINCH, GOLDFINCH, BULLFINCH and the first GREENFINCH for over a week. There was an increase in GOLDCREST numbers too with at least 4 being found.

The Wet Woods was mostly quiet this morning, but GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER, NUTHATCH, a singing STOCK DOVE and a glimpse of the albino Squirrel gave some interest there.

At the Greenhouse Grounds a flock of 15 -20 SISKIN fed in the line of Alder trees, a few MEADOW PIPITS, a PIED WAGTAIL, another pair of Bullfinch and a particularly nice to see YELLOWHAMMER were also seen here, the nearby Greenhouse Copse held the LONG TAILED TIT flock that were missed over at the scrubby Woods.

Over on the pasture and paddocks of Migrant Alley at least 75 ROOKS were feeding with at least 25 JACKDAWS, and the only SKYLARK of the day was heard flying over, but little else flew over, just HERRING and BLACK HEADED GULLS.

In all a good visit I think, 50 species could well of been achieved if the Pheasant and Treecreeper had obliged, as they have in recent visits.

ROBIN