Pittswood Birds

With dense fog once again plaguing the area, I decided to wait for it to clear before heading out, giving me time to undertake this years RSPB ''Big Garden Birdwatch''.

Before I had even sat down, the Sparrowhawk flew through and went up into its ambush tree, I flushed it out and thankfully it stayed away for the hours watch  :-)

Here's what turned up in my allotted hours vigil.
SPARROWHAWK - 1
BLUE TIT - 13
GREAT TIT - 4
COAL TIT - 2
GREENFINCH - 2
GOLDFINCH - 9
CHAFFINCH - 8
COLLARED DOVE - 7
HOUSE SPARROW - 1
DUNNOCK - 3
STARLING - 4
BLACKBIRD - 2
NUTHATCH - 2
ROBIN - 3
MAGPIE - 1
JACKDAW - 2
LESSER REDPOLL - 3
GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER - 2

The only species that didn't turn up, but was expected, was the Long Tailed Tit, it turned up after the hour had finished!

By 10:00hrs I was walking over to the Lakes out on my patch, of course at that time in the morning it was a predictably quiet walk. I saw the KESTREL pair as I passed the Greenhouses, they were calling to each other, the male bird flew low over me and I could see it had something trailing from it's legs, I couldn't see what it was properly but it looked like grass, hopefully it isn't anything more sinister than that.

A BUZZARD was seen up soaring as I walked the Ashes Lane Field, where in the more weedy part of the field I saw 4 REDWING and 4 MISTLETHRUSH feeding together, over head a dozen FIELDFARE headed NE.

On the lakes I was pleased to see 2 female GOOSANDER had returned, the MUTE SWAN pair and the single COOT were also present, and the KINGFISHER was seen well, a CORMORANT sat on top of a bankside tree, and a few MOORHEN and MALLARD made up the rest of what was on the water.

I spent a little while watching the sky from my seat over at Migrant Alley, but as has been the case for some while now, it was a mostly empty sky, just HERRING and BLACK HEADED GULLS were of any note. The LITTLE OWL was seen back on its perch at the Greenhouse Copse before I left for home.

This afternoon, predictably, it brightened up for a while, so I went into my garden shed to try and photograph the Redpoll that were seen at the feeders that morning, especially the nice rosy breasted male, but despite sitting and waiting for 2 hours, they never showed up!  I got a few images of the other regulars, but they are not the best efforts, due to the poor light and high ISO setting I had to use.

Blue Tit

Coal Tit

Coal tit

Long Tailed Tit

Great tit

Greenfinch

Greenfinch

Nuthatch