Pittswood Birds

No post yesterday, the rain was just too much for me, more rain this morning made for a squelchy muddy affair, but it soon moved away leaving a cloudy dull morning.

I covered most parts of my patch in the 3 hours I was out, and recorded a good tally of 46 bird species, but still nothing new for the year list. A skein of 4 GREYLAG GEESE flew over Ashes lane early in the visit, and shortly after, the PEREGRINE did likewise. Crossing the Ashes Lane field I noted 4 MEADOW PIPITS, 4 FIELDFARE and a REDWING, these were the only winter thrushes seen this morning though.

Over at the lakes, there was not so much activity as earlier visits, only 6 MALLARD were seen over the 3 water bodies and just 4 MOORHEN, but MUTE SWAN, COOT, KINGFISHER, CORMORANT and a pair of MANDARIN DUCKS were good finds here.

TREECREEPER, NUTHATCH, GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER, COAL TIT, BULLFINCH, GOLDCREST and flyover LESSER REDPOLL were all recorded in the Wet Woods and Scrubby Woods, along with all the more common stuff, no Long Tailed Tit today though.

Walking over to the Greenhouse Grounds, a BUZZARD flew over, and both HERRING GULL and BLACK HEADED GULL were also noted flying over. SISKIN and GOLDFINCH flitted through the Alder Trees at the Greenhouse Grounds, where many DUNNOCKS, BLACKBIRDS, WRENS and ROBINS were found, along with at least 4 SONGTHRUSH. A pair of PIED WAGTAILS fed around the polytunnel frames, with 4 more Meadow Pipits. The nearby Greenhouse Copse was again home to a LITTLE OWL, and as I watched it a SKYLARK flew over, calling as it went, the first for a week here.

It brightened up slightly by midday, by then I was at home, and whilst putting the kettle on for a brew, I looked out at my feeders to find a pair of Lesser Redpoll feeding, a very welcome species for my garden, not often I get those visiting. A CARRION CROW also came in, they are even more scarce in my little plot! The garden year list is at least moving along, that's up to 24 now  :-)

I tried for some photo's of the Lesser Redpoll, but the light was quite poor and I was scrabbling around with some low shutter speeds, I did get a couple nice images of them though.

Lesser Redpoll

They were very wary of the feeders at first

but soon got the hang of how to get the seed out of them

They gained confidence as the afternoon went on

Once established at a perch, they defended it aggressively