Pittswood Birds

Wall to wall blue skies this morning made for an enjoyable 5 hour trek around my patch. Numbers of birds were low, but there were still plenty of bird species to be seen. Flyovers, early on in the walk, from GREY HERON, HERRING GULL and LESSER BLACK BACK GULL helped bolster the list, which ended on 46 species.

BLACKCAP, CHIFFCHAFF, COMMON WHITETHROAT and SWALLOW were the only summer birds seen this morning as I walked the fields and checking the Greenhouse Grounds I found all the regulars, WRENS, ROBINS, DUNNOCKS, BLACKBIRDS, SONGTHRUSH, CHAFFINCH, GOLDFINCH and GREENFINCH. The passage of swifts seems to have come to an end now, and no House Martins were seen going over either. The SKYLARK pair remain in the Ashes Lane Field, where hopefully there are breeding.

Grey Heron flying high over

Over at the Scrubby Woods and Wet Woods, more Chiffchaff and Blackcaps sang, plus TREECREEPER, NUTHATCH, COAL TIT, LONG TAILED TIT, GOLDREST, BULLFINCH, GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER, GREEN WOODPECKER, and STOCK DOVE were all eventually found, but they did take some finding today and the likes of Jay and Mistlethrush never did get seen. Amongst the more common species, I found the first newly fledged BLUE TITS of the year, the earliest ever, by a week!

I still await the hatching of the MUTE SWAN eggs over on the lakes, where the COOT pair are still with their two young. GREYLAG GOOSE, CANADA GOOSE, MALLARD and MOORHEN were also on the water. As I scanned to find the Coot young, one of those 'birding' moments happened when my first KINGFISHER (72) since February suddenly appeared 2 meters in front of me, with a fish in its bill, it looked at me, I looked at it, but of course as soon as I moved towards my camera, off it went! Still, a nice addition to the May list, which is now the joint second highest of the 13 years, and just one species behind the best May tally, which was achieved in in 2011, oh for those missing Turtle doves and garden warblers now  :-)

A pair of LITTLE OWLS were heard calling from the Small Holding as I made my way to my seat for a sky watch, this however proved very disappointing, with just KESTREL being the only bird of note!

A few more Damselflies have emerged, no new species, but some time was spent with the camera getting some images  :-)

White-legged Damselfly

.

Large Red Damselfly

.

Female Beautiful Demoiselle

.

.