Pittswood Birds

No post yesterday, as I only made a couple of short patch visits, where it was very quiet, the only noteworthy occurrence being a couple of flyover MUTE SWANS.

This morning I was out to watch the sunrise, but it rose into a bank of cloud, giving all of 10 minutes sunshine  :-(

Sunrise

Once it got light I set off for my 100th full patch walk of the year, which yielded a slightly less than average tally of 42 species, the highlight was watching only my second ever patch record of BRENT GEESE, they flew over in a 48 strong flock, taking exactly the same route as the ones seen on the 10th of this month, across Migrant Alley, over the Greenhouse Grounds and off over the Ashes Lane Field a brilliant species for my patch  :-)

It was barely light, but I got a record shot of the Brent Geese -  Mr Heath will be pleased with me :-)

The camera had trouble focusing in the poor light!

A few small skeins of both GREYLAG and CANADA GEESE also flew over during my walk, as did a flock of 8 REDWING, nice to see something Autumnal at last  :-) 

There were 4 MANDARIN DUCK on the main lake today, 3 of those being females, but nothing more of note was on the water. In the surrounding Scrubby Woods a BUZZARD flew out of it's probable roost site, plus GOLDCREST, TREECREEPER, NUTHATCH, and BULLFINCH were all seen or heard there.

There was an increase in the number of BLACKBIRDS seen today, but just 2 SONGTHRUSH and a single MISTLETHRUSH were found, still no sign of a FIELDFARE yet though, they haven't been this late arriving since the Winters of 05/06 (26th Oct) and 06/07 (2 Nov).

Not much else of any great note was seen, although my end of walk sky watch did provide sightings of several small CHAFFINCH flocks moving east to west, only around 40-50 birds in all though. Also of note, two YELLOWHAMMERS, 15 SKYLARKS, 8 MEADOW PIPITS, a GREY HERON, a BUZZARD and the KESTREL pair were also seen during my 1 hour vigil.