Pittswood Birds

Well, for the first time in weeks there was no rain and no wind for a full patch walk, the sun shone for all of the four hour visit, with the conditions helping along a good mornings tally of 48 bird species, even though the regulars like Treecreeper, Black Headed Gull and Kestrel were not seen.

As soon as I left the front door, the world proved to be a very different place to what it has been since the year began, bird song resounded in the frosty air, with WREN, ROBIN, DUNNOCK, GREENFINCH, CHAFFINCH, SONGTHRUSH, BLACKBIRD, MISTLETHRUSH, COLLARED DOVE, BLUE TIT, and GREAT TIT all singing, not too far away the call of GREEN WOODPECKER, CARRION CROW, JACKDAW, MAGPIE, WOODPIGEON, and PIED WAGTAIL could all be heard, all that in the 150 meters that I walked Ashes lane to get to the Ashes lane Field, where the sighting of a LITTLE OWL at the old shack was the first seen there this month.

Over on the lakes, it was good to see two GREYLAG GEESE with 3 CANADA GEESE and the feral BARNACLE GOOSE, the MUTE SWAN and COOT pair came over to be fed by the bread I had brought, but their is no light here in the early morning so I didn't get any photo's of them. I scanned the lakes for a while but found only MALLARD and MOORHEN, until that is, this dropped in, alighting on a fir tree.......... at last GREY HERON (66, 60) joins the year list  :-)

Hoorah! My first Grey Heron of the year!!

The Scrubby Woods and Wet Woods, between them provided sightings of SISKIN, GOLDCREST, and COAL TIT, all of which sang, as well as calling JAY, BULLFINCH, NUTHATCH, drumming GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER and best of all a WOODCOCK (61) that flew up in front of me whilst I was in the Scrubby Woods, good to get that species on the February list  :-)

Out on the Fields their were small parties of both FIELDFARE and REDWING moving around, mainly keeping to the boundary tree tops, a couple of PHEASANT were aslo seen, they've not been common this year so far, and more song was heard, this time from a couple of SKYLARK, keeping the springlike theme of the morning going.

I finished up around the Greenhouse Grounds and the adjacent Copse, where another Little Owl was seen, this one gave me a few photo's, and it even called as I did so, you dont realise how loud the call is until you're 10 meters from them!

Little Owl, I rarely get a clean view of these

It flew from its original perch.................

..........Alighting in a more open tree, but it still had a shadow across it's head

it then flew back to it's original perch unphased by me  :-)

 I found a couple of LONG TAILED TITS and 8 MEADOW PIPITS in the Greenhouse Grounds, where a SPARROWHAWK was seen going over low and slow, it was as I watched it through the bins that I saw 3 large gulls go over, these proved to be GREAT BLACK BACKED GULLS (62) a very good find for the months list, which now stands at 62, the sixth highest total out of 13.