Pittswood Birds

The early blue skies soon clouded over during my patch walk this morning, towards the end of which there was a torrential, thundery downpour.

I recorded a rather low tally of just 41 species during the 5 hour walk, missing from the list were Nuthatch, Stock Dove, Songthrush, Greylag and Canada Geese all of which have been seen daily for weeks now, mind you there was a lot of halfwits out shooting yesterday, so the geese may have taken a different flyover route today  :-)

There were still a few good sightings to be had this morning though, a HOBBY was seen chasing the SWALLOWS over Migrant Alley early on, plus a WHEATEAR was on the paddock fence line, also a flock of at least 200 STARLINGS was out on the sheep pasture.

KESTREL and SPARROWHAWK were hunting around the Greenhouse Grounds, not surprising then that not much was seen there, but a party of WHITETHROAT and a lone CHIFFCHAFF were skulking among the discarded Raspberry stems.

Two BUZZARDS that were seen over the Wet Woods made it four Raptor species for the day, but the Woods were very quiet today, I found a couple of BLACKCAPS in the Scrubby Woods, plus GOLDCREST, COAL TIT, TREECREEPER and BULLFINCH among the more common stuff, but Long Tailed Tit and Mistlethrush still haven't been found fr the months list!

Nothing had joined the regulars of MUTE SWAN, COOT, MALLARD and MOORHEN on the lakes.

A short sky watch just before the downpour only produced LESSER BLACK BACKED GULLS, HERRING GULLS and a couple of HOUSE MARTIN of note.

Wheatear at Migrant Alley, albeit a bit distant. Some Wheatears seem more obliging than others  :-)

I got to about ten meters of it, before it got bored of me and flew off to feed on the paddocks

Mute Swan

The youngster of the above is now getting quite a size  :-)