Pittswood Birds

Clear blue skies slowly filled with fair weather cloud this morning, but it remained warm and virtually windless for my 5 hour patch visit today.

As yesterday, a good selection of species was encountered, 49 in all, with three of those being additions to the July list. The first of those was the SPARROWHAWK (54), both male and female birds were seen up hunting on more than one occasion, each time being shown the exit door from a gang of scolding SWALLOWS and PIED WAGTAILS.

Two LITTLE OWLS (55) were the second addition to the July tally, one was seen around the old shack in the ashes Lane Field, the other flew from the Greenhouse Copse, across into the Greenhouse Grounds, where earlier I had watched both BLACKCAP and WHITETHROAT youngsters being fed.

The last addition to the July list was a KINGFISHER (56) found on the ornamental lake, a nice surprise, as they can be hard to find in July, hopefully it will stay around for a while. Not much else really changing from yesterdays visit, no more successful breeding was confirmed, I just cant seem to find the CHIFFCHAFF young this year, at least 3 pairs are in the Scrubby Woods breeding! I did find a new butterfly species for the year though, a Gate Keeper, which flew along the Ashes Lane hedgerow as I walked home, the 23rd species seen for 2014  :-)

This young Swallow was seen on a wire fence at Migrant Alley, along with 4 of its siblings, they proved hard to approach though!

I'm almost at the end of my series of bird images from Wales, today ive posted up photo's of the Grey Wagtail, once again you can click the tab under the header photo labelled ''Grey wagtails'' or click here to see them. Here's a few to start off with   :-)