Pittswood Birds

Fog and mist plagued the patch visit early this morning, but it wasn't so dense to obscure a nice WHEATEAR sitting on the paddock fencing at Migrant Alley, or the 50 - 60 LINNETS and a dozen MEADOW PIPITS that were on one of the paddocks.

The edge of the maize crop again had the only BLACKCAP of the visit present, along with at least 5 CHIFFCHAFFS, plus a mix of CHAFFINCH, GOLDFINCH, DUNNOCK, ROBIN, SONGTHRUSH and BLACKBIRD. As I crossed into the Ashes Lane Field a flock of around 10 LONG TAILED TITS were seen at the run off pool area, with them were 2 more Chiffchaffs and a few BLUE and GREAT TITS.

The Scrubby Woods was dull and wet after the first rain of the month fell overnight, COAL TIT, and GOLDCREST sang, and 2 BULLFINCH sat on an overhead cable, quickly dropping back down to cover as I approached, but they were the only scarcer woodland species seen today. There was nothing at all to get excited about on the lakes, just the usual MUTE SWAN, COOT and MOORHENS, not even a Mallard today!

The fog and mist lifted a little for my sky watch, which produced flyovers from BUZZARD, SPARROWHAWK, a few HERRING GULLS, a MISTLETHRUSH and a GREY WAGTAIL. Three KESTRELS chased around over the sheep pasture, that after not seeing any yesterday! A group of 4, then 8 SWALLOWS were noted flying purposely SW, not many left now. The flock of 50-60 Linnets that were seen earlier in the morning had at least doubled in size, I estimated at least 150 birds were now on the paddocks, the biggest flock ive ever seen here!

Early this afternoon I took my 100mm macro lens out to try and get some Dragonfly images over at the Greenhouse Grounds, upon arriving though, I was stopped in my tracks when I saw a couple of Weasels playing around in the hedgerow. I watched for a few minutes, noting that they were using the same holes and runs, so placed myself as close as I dared to one of the holes, then waited! Before long, a head popped out of the hole, cautiously at first, but the Weasel and then its probable sibling eventually came out and scampered around. I got a few shots of them, they were very curious and kept coming up to investigate the shutter sound, they were so quick to scamper back into there holes when the shutter operated that I didn't get two consecutive shots, that despite the camera firing 8 frames per second! Now if I had only brought my 400mm lens......Doh!

Weasel - look left

 Look right

All clear, then charge into cover !

A quick check all is well again...

Ready to go....

Pose for the camera.....

A quick Meercat impression....then off they went. One of the best 90 minutes I have had  :-)