Pittswood Birds

The view of the field to the front of my house yesterday afternoon, never had standing water there before!

It was initially wet and rainy early on this morning, but that soon passed and by 09:00hrs the cloud started to break up, allowing for some welcome, warm, sunny spells.

I was out for a little over 3 hours, visiting most parts of my patch, the 42 species I found is about what I would expect for a February visit, but it is still a case of recording the familiar and regular stuff, still no sign of Grey heron or Lapwing for the year list, and Yellowhammer is still avoiding me  this month.

The ornamental lake had the COOT and SWAN pair, which I fed some bread to, the feral BARNACLE GOOSE was alone on the small lake, but the main lake had attracted nothing but a few MALLARDS and MOORHENS today.

The Scrubby Woods and the Wet Woods between them provided the likes of TREECREEPER, COAL TIT, LONG TAILED TIT, GOLDCREST, BULLFINCH, GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER and a single flyover SISKIN, as well as all the common stuff like BLUE TITS, GREAT TITS, CHAFFINCH, GOLDFINCH, BLACKBIRD, WREN, DUNNOCK, ROBIN, MISTLETHRUSH and SONGTHRUSH, the only regulars missing were the Jay and Nuthatch.

Out on the fields, it was a case of finding mostly corvids, with MAGPIES, JACKDAWS, CARRION CROWS, and ROOKS all feeding on the rain softened pastures, and at times bathing in the large puddles on it.

The Greenhouse Grounds had more of the woodland species flitting around, but GREENFINCH, PIED WAGTAIL, MEADOW PIPIT and HOUSE SPARROW were added to the days list here, as well as the only raptor today, that being one of the KESTREL pair. The adjacent Greenhouse Copse had just one little owl today.

A short sky watch added HERRING GULL and COMMON GULL for the morning, but surprisingly not Black Headed Gull.

No time for any garden bird photo's this afternoon, despite some sun, as it's my 21st wedding anniversary today and some time was put aside from my birding to keep me in the wifes good books, I did sneak out in the back garden and get a shot of the first Crocus of the spring though :-)

First Crocus! A queen Bumblebee also appeared as I took this image, spring is coming!!!

Here's whats left in my 'blog photo folder', these were taken from my garden during the week.

Long Tailed Tit

Blue tit

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