Pittswood Birds

It was dull and cool with a moderate wind this morning, things seem to take an age to liven up, but eventually they did, with another good tally of 49 species recorded in the 5 hour visit, 40 minutes of which was spent sheltering from a heavy downpour!

A WHEATEAR was again seen at Migrant Alley, and as I walked a circuit of the sheep pasture and paddocks, a steady trickle of HOUSE MARTINS was seen flying SW, with them at one point were at least 5 SAND MARTINS. I stopped at my sky watching seat and scanned into the Greenhouse Grounds, where 3 -4 WHITETHROAT were seen, along with a calling CHIFFCHAFF, I allowed myself a brief rest on my seat before moving on to the Woods, which was a very good move, as I heard the fizzing, buzzing call of a TREE PIPIT (97,71) fly over, I quickly scanned the grey skies and picked it out, this is only the second Tree Pipit I have recorded here, in this, the 13th year of recording, a star bird for my patch!

With a bit more of a spring in my step, I walked over to the Wet Woods, Scrubby Woods and Lake area, there was not quite the activity of yesterday, but a good number of birds were still around, most of them feeding on the berry bonanza in the Scrubby Woods. I made minimum counts of 15 BLUE TITS, 6 GREAT TITS, 4 BULLFINCH, 8 CHAFFINCH, 13 GOLDFINCH, 3 GOLDCREST, 3 BLACKCAP, 2 CHIFFCHAFF, 2 NUTHATCH, 1 GARDEN WARBLER, 1 WHITETHROAT and a mix of the usual WRENS, DUNNOCKS, ROBINS, SONGTHRUSH and BLACKBIRDS, but there was no finding a Treecreeper or Coal Tit today, nor was there any sign of that Mistlethrush that has yet to be found for the August list!

On the lakes, 8 CANADA GEESE, the BARNACLE GOOSE and a GREY HERON were the only visitors to join the regular MUTE SWANS, COOTS, MALLARDS and MOORHENS seen there.

After the 40 minute downpour, I went back over to my seat at Migrant Alley for a skywatch, where I saw plenty of HERRING GULLS moving through, plus a couple of LESSER BLACK BACKED GULLS, the regular raptor species of KESTREL, SPARROWHAWK and BUZZARD were also seen, but of more interest today were the 6 SWIFTS that flew over high up, the last this year ?

The weather put a hold on any photographs being taken for today, so it's back to those Dragonflies that I photographed earlier in the week  :-)

Male Southern  Hawker

Male Migrant Hawker

I was able to get in close to this Southern Hawker

Then a bit closer still

I got as close as the 100mm lens would focus!

It did eventually move to another perch, but not far away so more shots were taken

Hopefully, I can get this close to a Migrant Hawker, I would love some good close up shots of them too, weather looks ok for a try tomorrow :-)