Pittswood Birds

Another dreary day, with spells of drizzle and light rain throughout, it was so dull and dreary here I had to put the lights on whilst I had dinner !

I had a couple of short patch visits, one early on around the Greenhouse Grounds, which produced a LITTLE OWL and KESTREL, plus fleeting glimpses of COMMON WHITETHROAT and BLACKCAP, a few LINNETS were also seen, but no recently fledged young were found with them yet, shouldn't be long before a few appear.

I had a later patch visit this afternoon, when I went to my seat at Migrant Alley to watch the sky, if I am to add anything new to the may list it will probably be a flyover species. I saw a few HERRING GULLS, and at least 8 LESSER BLACK BACKED GULLS flying westwards, a SPARROWHAWK drifted over my seat and was promptly seen off by a pair of PIED WAGTAILS. At one point a party of two dozen HOUSE MARTINS wheeled above me, silhouetted against the grey backdrop of the sky, with them were half a dozen SWIFTS. The local SWALLOWS fed low and slow over the sheep pasture, it must be hard trying to find insects in this weather. Two GREYLAG GEESE were on one of the paddocks, along with many young ROOKS and CARRION CROWS, plus a few JACKDAWS and WOODPIGEONS. My sky watch fizzled out as another pulse of drizzle drifted in, limiting visibility, another poor May day  :-(

Back home, whilst watching the garden feeders, a pair of HOUSE SPARROWS dropped in, they were escorting two fledglings, at least I got to add something to the 2014 breeding list today!

No action for the camera in the poor light, but I managed to trawl my archives for a recently fledged House Sparrow image!

Young House Sparrow