Pittswood Birds

Early Sun peaking above the cloud line

With yesterdays visit being postponed due the persistent heavy rain and gusty winds, it was a real pleasure to get out of the house early this morning and find the sun was shining, well almost, as it was quite foggy!

I spent 3 and a half hours out, finding a total of 47 bird species, which is a good tally for a January visit. Before the sun was even up I could here the BLACKBIRDS, SONGTHRUSHES, WRENS and ROBINS singing, then once the sun was up, DUNNOCK, MISTLETHRUSH and even a TREECREEPER joined in  :-)

It wasn't long before I added a new species to my year list, when at least 80 GREYLAG GEESE (56) flew over Migrant Alley, but there wasn't much around on the pasture and paddocks so early in the morning.

Over at the lakes the MUTE SWAN pair were still finding the Ornamental Lake to their liking, as was the COOT, hopefully it will find a mate soon, and make this the third year running that they will raise a brood here. A dozen MALLARD and half a dozen MOORHEN were also present, whilst on the Main lake just 3 CANADA GEESE were seen, the Small Lake had nothing but 2 more Mallard on it.

Between the Scrubby Woods, Wet Woods and Small Holding, I found most of the woodland specialists, GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER, GOLDCREST, BULLFINCH, COAL TIT, LONG TAILED TIT, NUTHATCH, another 2 Treecreepers, plus a few REDWING and a couple of FIELDFARE.

Now the sun was out proper, I went and checked the old shack in the Ashes Lane Field, in the hope of finding the LITTLE OWL, and it didn't disappoint, it sat sunning itself and watched it from a distance. Walking to the Greenhouse Grounds, plenty of HERRING GULLS were moving across the now clouding over sky, with fewer BLACK HEADED GULLS and 2 LESSER BLACK BACKED GULLS also being seen.

The Greenhouse Grounds was pretty active, with all the common regulars being found, including at least 4 SONGTHRUSH, one of which I got some kind of photo of.....

Songthrush

There were also plenty of Blackbirds around, and I enjoyed watching both SISKIN and MEADOW PIPIT feeding in the old decaying Raspberry stems, a lone GREENFINCH was the first seen out on my patch this year, away from my garden.

Blackbird

Siskin

A short skywatch from my seat overlooking Migrant Alley was worth the effort today, as I added two more species to my Year list, the first was a COMMON BUZZARD (57) that went low over, and as I watched it, a PEREGRINE (58) made frequent attacks on it, driving the Buzzard away and over to the Wet Woods, what a great sight!  Brilliant to be out again!!!