Pittswood Birds

This morning was cloudy and breezy, later, some sunny spells broke through but the wind increased making it difficult for insect photography - if not impossible!

My five hour patch visit today was very uneventful, a sky watch early on only provided a few HERRING GULLS, a LESSER BLACK BACKED GULL and a BLACK HEADED GULL. Whilst gazing out from my seat across the sheep pasture, I counted 77 STARLINGS, 42 of those being immature birds. Behind me, in the Greenhouse Grounds, the KESTREL family continue to chase about, causing the adult WHITETHROATS and BLACKCAPS to scold continually.

Over in the Scrubby Woods I continued my search for any recently fledged young, concentrating mainly on BULLFINCH, a few adults were seen, but no sign of any youngsters yet. COAL TITS were heard to sing and call, as were TREECREEPERS, a family of NUTHATCH made all sorts of noises between them, and a family of GOLDCRESTS chased excitedly about in an Oak tree with a family of BLUE TITS. Two COMMON BUZZARDS flew over low, mewing to each other, and further up in the sky a dozen SWIFTS were wheeling about.

The lakes were very disturbed today, and as a consequence little was noted, but the MUTE SWAN and COOT family continue to thrive  :-)

As I said earlier, the wind made photography very difficult today, and I took very few images, but here's what I managed  :-)

Male White-legged Damselfly

A very worn Female Broad Bodied Chaser - compare her to yesterdays !

This looks like a probable Essex Skipper, at least I'm happy to call it one  :-)

Female Small Skipper