Pittswood Birds

Another grey and misty start to the day, it did however brighten up later, too late for my full patch walk though!

Among the 48 species I recorded today, were some nice birds  - for my patch  :-)  A couple of GREY WAGTAILS that flew from the Greenhouse Grounds first thing were seen and heard a few times before my walk was finished, the YELLOW WAGTAIL passage just about continues, with a single bird flying over Migrant Alley, where I also found another WHINCHAT, superb birds, I cant get enough of them!

At least 5 CHIFFCHAFFS were feeding along the edge of the Maize crop at the Pub Field, with them were a few HOUSE SPARROWS, CHAFFINCHES and my only BLACKCAP of the day.  Crossing the Ashes Lane Field, three MEADOW PIPITS flew up and a pair of MISTLE THRUSHES were seen flying over.

There were plenty of birds around the Scrubby Woods area, mainly Chaffinches, GOLDFINCHES, BLUE TITS, GREAT TITS, ROBINS, DUNNOCKS, and BLACKBIRDS, along with a couple of SONGTHRUSH and a lone GREENFINCH. Of the scarcer woodland species, I saw GOLDCREST, BULLFINCH and JAY, plus I heard NUTHATCH, COAL TIT, and STOCK DOVE, but I couldn't locate a Treecreeper or Long Tailed Tit ( half a dozen of the latter were seen in my garden this afternoon though, first time this Autumn)

Nothing exciting was found on the Lakes, where just one MALLARD and a CANADA GOOSE was on the Main Lake, nothing at all was on the small lake and the ornamental lake had the usual MUTE SWAN family, COOT and a dozen MOORHENS. A pair of CORMORANTS flew over whilst I was there, choosing not to drop in to fish today though.

Walking back to get to my sky watching seat at Migrant Alley, through the Wet Woods, then the Small Holding, I picked up GREAT SPOTTED and GREEN WOODPECKERS as well as COLLARED DOVE that I hadn't yet found for the morning.

My sky watch today proved a quite a good one, with the likes of GREY HERON, LESSER BLACK BACKED GULL, HERRING GULL, SPARROWHAWK, BUZZARD, two groups of 3 SWALLOWS and a new species for the month too..........a REED BUNTING (71) it flew over quite low, calling as it did so, pity they never seem to stop here  :-(

This afternoon I thought I'd try and get some photo's for the blog as the sun had come out now, but the Sparrowhawk had different intentions, several attempts were made at making a meal of one of the finches, but it didn't succeed. Not much came to the feeders after that, so I spent some time re arranging my photographic perches. An hour later I settled down to try again, but only got a few shots, but at least I have now got a few nice photographic perches for the birds to sit, I'm ready for the coming Autumn  :-)

Greenfinch

GREAT TIT. I have now removed the annoying stick in the background  ;-)

Collared Dove

Amazing how a little bit of difference in the light gives a totally different image, I love the eyes on these birds though.