Pittswood Birds

It was cloudy and much cooler early this morning, rain threatened at times, but none fell during my 3 hour visit, later in the morning a few sunny spells broke through.

Most of the 3 hours were spent around Migrant Alley, the Greenhouse Grounds and the Ashes lane Field, hoping for an early migrant to show up, but I think i'm pushing my luck for a Whinchat or Wheatear just yet!

Around the sheep pasture and paddocks of Migrant Alley there were again a large flock of STARLINGS, at least 150 strong, the Corvid flock had roughly 40 ROOKS, 20 JACKDAWS and a dozen CARRION CROWS, amongst those, 30-40 WOODPIGEONS were dotted about. A small flock of a dozen or so LINNETS were also on the paddocks, with a family of four PIED WAGTAILS and a scattering of GOLDFINCH. Overhead, as I walked the circuit of Migrant Alley, three single LESSER BLACK BACKED GULLS, and small groups of HERRING GULLS flew over, along with some good sized BLACK HEADED GULL flocks, two were over 40 strong. I took up my seat for 40 minutes and watched the sky, seeing SPARROWHAWK, KESTREL, a brilliant HOBBY chasing the SWALLOWS and a single SWIFT. A dragonfly that I saw from some way out over the fields, slowly flew ever nearer to me, eventually settling on the hedgerow behind my seat that is the boundary the Greenhouse Grounds, it turned out to be my first Migrant Hawker of the year - a female  :-)

A walk around the Greenhouse Grounds was a sombre affair, after all the change there, but I did see a CHIFFCHAFF, two BLACKCAPS and two WHITETHROATS, as well as more Pied Wagtails, and the regular WRENS, DUNNOCKS, ROBINS, BLACKBIRDS, SONGTHRUSH, COLLARED DOVES, GREAT and BLUE TITS and four finch species  :-)

The ashes lane Fields were very quiet, not much habitat left here either, just the boundary hedgerow and drainage ditch, a SKYLARK flew up, and another Whitethroat was seen but that was about it.

Nothing much to report from the Scrubby Woods and Lakes, all much the same as yesterday, with the MANDARIN DUCKS being the highlight there.

This young GOLDFINCH was tucking into Buddleia seed in my garden

I chased a few butterflies around later in the morning, seeing Brown Argus, Small Copper and Common Blue and loads of Gatekeepers, but in the wind it was difficult to photograph them, I only saved these two images out of the fifty plus I took, and they are a bit iffy!!

Brown Argus