Pittswood Birds

As yesterday, the blue skies slowly clouded up as the day went on and a moderate wind developed.

I had a slightly better days birding today, with 46 species being found, mainly due to the species missing yesterday turning out today. I thought I saw another Wheatear distantly on the fenceline at Migrant Alley first thing, but by the time I had made my way nearer, the bird had gone. One species that was a certainty though was a REED BUNTING (67), one was heard calling from the Greenhouse Grounds and then located, but it escaped my camera! This is just the 3rd month this year that I have recorded Reed Bunting on my patch, January and March being the other two months.

My sky watch from my seat over looking Migrant Alley came up with much the same as yesterday, with four Raptor species being seen; HOBBY, SPARROWHAWK, KESTREL and BUZZARD, plus again, LESSER BLACK BACKED and HERRING GULLS went over, but a bit of a treat for todays sky watch was seeing a couple of SAND MARTINS with a flock of HOUSE MARTINS as they passed through.

Few summer bird were present today, 3 - 4 BLACKCAPS kept to the Scrubby Woods, but at least 6 WHITETHROATS were around the Greenhouse Grounds, where a LESSER WHITETHROAT was glimpsed, the odd CHIFFCHAFF was heard calling from various parts of my patch, and the 50 plus SWALLOWS seen on recent visits have thinned out a bit, with around a dozen seen today.

Later in the morning I had a look for some Dragon/Damselflies, and found a single White-legged Damselfly in the Scrubby Woods, along with a few Common Darters and a pair of Southern Hawkers. I moved on to the edge of the Wet Woods that opens out onto the Ashes Lane Fields, here it was a windless suntrap and many Hawkers were seen patrolling the woodland edge, mostly Migrant Hawkers, but also a couple more Southern Hawkers, a Brown Hawker and an Emperor Dragonfly. I was amazed to see a total of 11 Migrant hawkers all in close proximity perched up on the end of a dead twiggy branch, consisting of males, females and immatures all present together, they were  too high up to photograph though, as many were today. Find of the day was a Small Red Eyed Damselfly, an immature, just the second year I have recorded this species here  :-)

Immature Small Red Eyed Damselfly, quite a find here

There were at least 16 Migrant Hawkers all together along the woodland edge, this one is a male

This one looks like an immature male

This looks like an immature female, it settled just inches away from the immature male, above

Immature Female

Male Southern Hawker

Female Southern Hawker

Female Southern Hawker