Pittswood Birds

This morning was grey and misty, with a cool NE breeze, the day remained this way right up until 15:30hrs, when some much needed sunshine broke through, allowing me to visit the Ashes Lane field to look for Butterflies, where I saw my first Brown Argus of the year  :-)

Before the Butterflies, I had spent 4 hours out in the morning drearyness , trying to find some birds, there wasn't too much to excite, but finding a calling SPOTTED FLYCATCHER along the western end of  Ashes Lane was nice, i've seen a few on my patch this year, but none seem to have stayed, maybe this one will.

I also found a family of NUTHATCHES around the edge of the main lake, probably not the ones that fledged from the nest site in the Wet Woods, these were most likely from the nest that was in the Scrubby woods, good to add them to the years breeding list anyway.  I could here BULLFINCH and BLACKCAP calling, as well as CHIFCHAFF, but I couldn't locate any young ones, I think they are about though, just got to find them!

A few HERRING and LESSER BLACK BACKED GULLS, as well as a GREY HERON were notable flyovers, as were a party of 18-20 HOUSE MARTINS and a few SWIFTS that were with them. The three main raptor species were spotted today, the KESTREL pair at the Greenhouse Grounds, a SPARROWHAWK that flew low along Ashes Lane and a pair of BUZZARDS that were low over the Wet Woods.

Whilst eating brunch after my walk, I noticed a Juvenile GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER at my garden feeders, I took this record shot  :-)

Great Spotted Woodpecker (Juv)

Here' the Butterfly images I got this afternoon.

 Brown Argus Butterfly

Common Blue Butterfly

Ive still got lots of Damsel images from yesterday, so i'll post a few of them up!

 Beautiful Demoiselle - Female

 Beautiful Demoiselle - Female

White-legged Damselfly  - Immature