Pittswood Birds

This morning felt much cooler than of late, the wind making it feel even more so, quite a shock to the system!

My patch visit today was a real back down to earth job after all the excitement of recent visits, with barely a bird seen during my walk around Migrant Alley, only the SWALLOWS were present, I found it difficult to find even the likes of CHAFFINCH, GREAT TIT and ROOK! Where did all the birds go???

The immature GREY WAGTAIL was seen at the Greenhouse Grounds again, plus a couple of WHITETHROAT, the only migrant there was one of the workers out with a big black bag and a litter picker....at 6:30am!

I struggled on round, completing a full patch walk, and recorded a woeful 37 species, most of those just single birds, like the BLACKCAP, NUTHATCH, GOLDCREST, JAY and CHIFFCHAFF, ironically, I did see a troop of LONG TAILED TITS this morning, only the second record this month!  The fishermen had left the lake area, but it will take time to settle down again here, only a GREY HERON had arrived to join the MUTE SWAN family, the COOT pair, 4 MALLARDS and around a dozen MOORHENS.

I made another trip out around Migrant Alley around 11:00hrs, but again little was seen, the Rooks had turned up though, plus the KESTREL pair had returned to the greenhouse roof. A spot of Sky watching wasn't too bad, a couple of BUZZARDS, a SPARROWHAWK and a HOBBY made it a four raptor species day. HOUSE MARTINS were few, with a couple of flocks going over, both containing around 20-30 birds, the last bird for my list today was a flyover CORMORANT, but even with the afternoon additions the day list only reached 44 species, not good at all for an eight hour visit  :-(

With the sun only out for short periods, plus the cool temperatures, my Dragonfly hunting was not particularly successful either, I only saw a couple of Common Darters, a single Ruddy Darter, a single Southern Hawker and about 6 Migrant Hawkers that refused to settle anywhere. I got just a single photo, that being of the Southern Hawker!