Pittswood Birds

Sunny at times, cloudy at times, with a moderate SW wind, that was the weather for todays patch visit, which had a bit of everything to interest me.

A very good total of 51 species was recorded, with the REED WARBLER heard singing at the Greenhouse Grounds being the most surprising one, that, along with a couple of COMMON WHITETHROAT, a BLACKCAP and a CHIFFCHAFF all chipping in with some song made for a pleasant summer sound. The LITTLE OWL was perched on the guttering of one of the greenhouses, and was mobbed, in turn, by PIED WAGTAIL, SONGTHRUSH and BLACKBIRD. The KESTREL pair were busy hunting in the surrounding grounds, the first of 3 Raptor species seen today, the others were BUZZARD and SPARROWHAWK.

A small gathering of Gulls out on the paddocks at Migrant Alley included 5 HERRING and 2 LESSER BLACK BACKED GULLS, also, a GREYLAG GOOSE was in with the sheep.

Walking through the Wet Woods I again saw the MANDARIN DUCK with her family, but I also  added a new species to this years breeding list when I saw a grounded fledgling JAY, an adult was nearby, so I took a few very iffy looking photo's and left them to it, it was so dark in the woods I could barely get the camera to work, but I couldn't resist taking some sort of photo!

Fledgling Jay

Over at the lakes the MUTE SWAN and COOT pair are doing well, as are plenty of other species in the adjacent Scrubby Woods by the sound of it, all I could hear were the contact calls of fledgling birds, there were ROBINS, WRENS, DUNNOCKS, TREECREEPERS, BLUE TITS, COAL TITS, GREAT TITS and LONG TAILED TITS all chattering away and begging for food. NUTHATCH and BULLFINCH were also seen carrying food for as yet unfledged young.

On my home, I stopped off in the Ashes Lane Field to photograph a couple of mating Common Blue Butterflies, which proved frustrating in the wind and intermittent sunshine!

Common Blue

Common Blue

Around 12:30hrs I was joined by Marc heath, ( see his blog, with proper photographs here!) He was making a visit to my patch to try and find and hopefully photograph the Beautiful Demoiselles and White-legged Damselflies over at the scrubby Woods. We found not only those two species, but also found Blue Tailed, Common Blue, Azure Blue, and Large Red Damselflies, as well as Broad Bodied and Four Spotted Chaser, and the first Emperor Dragonfly for my patch this year. Whilst hunting dragons, a TURTLE DOVE was heard ''purring'' the first I have heard singing this year, and I also found a party of newly fledged GOLDCRESTS to add to the years ''successfully bred'' list, thats on 27 now  :-)

A walk over to the Wooded Headland to the north of Migrant Alley had us finding a couple more Beautiful demoiselles, and a possible immature Black tailed Skimmer, but that didn't hang around for a positive ID, would be a good dragon to get here!

Four Spotted Chaser

Four Spotted Chaser

Four Spotted Chaser

Four Spotted Chaser

Four Spotted Chaser

Male Emperor Dragonfly