Pittswood Birds

Heavy rain fell for the first day of the new month, and I only managed a hour out late in the morning, when the rain eased off a bit.

I spent my hour out with a walk over to the Greenhouse Grounds, with a partial coverage of Migrant Alley. First birds noted for the new month were STARLING, KESTREL, SWALLOW, ROBIN, BLACKBIRD, JACKDAW, GOLDFINCH, WOODPIGEON, WREN, and LONG TAILED TIT, all seen as I walked the 200 yards along Ashes lane to the Greenhouse Grounds.

Around the scrubby vegetation of the Greenhouses, CHAFFINCH, GREENFINCH, BLUE TIT, DUNNOCK, SONGTHRUSH, LINNET, GREAT TIT, WHITETHROAT, CHIFFCHAFF, BLACKCAP, and HOUSE SPARROW joined the May list, plus a PIED WAGTAIL was seen up on the Greenhouse Rooves.

My brief partial walk of Migrant Alley, in deteriorating conditions, was more interesting of late, mainly due to the female WHEATEAR that was seen on one of the fence rails, plus flyovers from LESSER BLACK BACKED GULL, GREYLAG GOOSE, STOCK DOVE and a surprise CUCKOO that called as it flew north all made it a worthwhile visit. CARRION CROW, ROOK, and SKYLARK were seen out on the sheep pasture, and on my walk back through the Greenhouse Grounds a COLLARED DOVE and GREEN WOODPECKER were found, as well as the Wheatear that had followed me, at least I presume it had, and was not a second bird. As the rain began to fall heavier again, I headed for home, only adding MAGPIE and GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER to my measly species tally of just 34, it was good to see the Wheatear and Cuckoo though!

Earlier this afternoon I went shopping, and bought a new camera to cheer myself up  :-) A nice new Canon 7D, that, combined with a borrowed Canon 'L' sereis 400mm prime lens should help get me a few nice images, well, it will if the weather cheers up!

Better hunting tomorrow I hope, with lots of new species for the month that should be easily found over on the lakes and in the woods. The target for this May is 71 species, that being the mean average tally for the previous 5 Mays, the best May species total was 73, which was achieved back in 2011, be nice to beat that this month  :-)