Pittswood Birds

Sheep pasture at Migrant Alley, first thing this morning

Scattered cloud and sunny intervals made for a pleasant full patch walk today, where once again I recorded a very good tally of species, 50 in all, plus with the addition of NUTHATCH, COAL TIT and LESSER REDPOLL, all seen at my garden feeders as I was eating my brunch, it made for a very rewarding day, its not often I get into the low fifties for a species count on my patch  :-)

I was still a tiny bit miffed at not adding anything to the year list or the months list, however I saw some nice birds during my 6 hours out in the field. LITTLE OWLS were once again very prominent, with a pair calling at the Small Holding and also another pair calling in the old shack at the Ashes lane Field, a single was encountered at its usual tree in the Greenhouse Copse, where again a TREECREEPER sang.

Little Owl at the Greenhouse Copse

BLACK HEADED, LESSER BLACK BACKED and HERRING GULLS were all seen over the sheep pasture at Migrant Alley, as were the three regular raptor species of COMMON BUZZARD, SPARROWHAWK and KESTREL, all seen up hunting at some point during my walk.

The lakes have settled down to the same five inhabitants now, those being the MUTE SWAN and COOT pair, MALLARD, MOORHEN, plus the nesting CANADA GEESE. The adjacent Scrubby Woods had 2 singing CHIFFCHAFFS, also seen were BULLFINCHES, GOLDCRESTS, LONG TAILED TITS, JAYS, and all the more common stuff of WREN, DUNNOCK, ROBIN, BLACKBIRD, SONGTHRUSH, BLUE TIT, GREAT TIT, CHAFFINCH and GREENFINCH etc.

Singing Chiffchaff

A second visit to the fields were had, where there were flyovers from GREY HERON and GREYLAG GOOSE, plus the rather brilliant sound of a YELLOWHAMMER singing from a lone Oak in the Ashes Lane Field, the first singing Yellowhammer on my patch for a couple of years! Both SKYLARKS and MEADOW PIPITS were now up and about, now it had warmed up, just in ones and two's but pleasant to hear.

I had an hour long skywatch from my seat at Migrant Alley, but didn't see anything that hadn't already been recorded earlier, however, I did see a reasonable sized flock of mixed winter thrushes that were feeding for a while out on the sheep pasture, I counted 68 birds, the REDWING outnumbering the FIELDFARES by 2 to 1.

Blue Tit

Wren