Pittswood Birds

After heavy overnight rain, I was hoping maybe a migrant Wheatear had dropped into the paddocks and sheep pasture at Migrant Alley this morning, but no luck there just yet, in fact it was very birdless out there this morning under the grey skies, although it was good to see over 50 SWALLOWS on the fence lines, and mixing with them were around 15 LINNETS, the one highlight from the early part of my walk was seeing a BLACK HEADED GULL (47) fly over, one for the August list  :-)

As I walked the Ashes Lane Fields, 3 GREY HERONS flew over in a line, an unusual sight here. On reaching the Scrubby Woods I soon found where all the birds were, for as I sat and watched the Oaks, Elder and Bramble, I saw at least 20 BLACKCAPS feeding on the berries, most of them were immature birds, which is good to see. I also saw 2 GARDEN WARBLERS (48) and a LESSER WHITETHROAT (49) in amongst the Blackcaps, but only 3 CHIFFCHAFF were seen. I couldn't count the many BLUE and GREAT TITS that were in the Oaks, such was there frenetic activity, but at least 30 birds were in the mix, along with a couple of COAL TITS. Many family parties of GOLDFINCH and CHAFFINCH were also seen, plus at least 4 BULLFINCH, also 2 TREECREEPER, 2 NUTHATCH, 4 GOLDCREST, 3 GREEN WOODPECKER, 2 GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER and at least 2 families of both BLACKBIRDS and SONGTHRUSH were seen. It was quite something to sit and watch all this activity, and as I did so I noted a female MANDARIN DUCK (50) fly over, which brought up the 50th species for August.

On the way home I saw a BUZZARD fly over, but there was no sign of a Kestrel today, or the months first Sparrowhawk - maybe thats why there were so many birds in the woods!! When I did reach home I was well pleased to see a Lesser Whitethroat in my Elder tree, the 31st bird species to visit my garden this year  :-)  I was also well happy to see my first ever Brown Argus in my garden too  :-)

This afternoon I paid a visit to Bough Beech Reservoir, finding a few nice waders about, like Greenshank, Common and Green sandpipers plus plenty of Lapwings. There was no Great White Egret today, but a few Little Egret were seen, plus all the regular common stuff thats rarely seen on my patch. I took a few photo's whilst there, but the distance from the subjects makes for poor quality shots, plus all the vegetation growing around the reservoir edges makes vewing birds difficult, let alone photographing them!

Lapwing

 

Lapwing, having a sky watch  :-)

Lapwing

 

Little Egret

Mandarin Duck