Pittswood Birds

After barely getting out at all yesterday, due to the rain, today was a much better day, with some sunshine, little wind and a slight frost.

I was able to spend just over four hours out, completing a full patch walk during which I found 46 species, which is good going for a November visit.

As I was taking the above images, small parties of both REDWING and FIELDFARE were heard, then seen flying over, a YELLOWHAMMER that also flew over was an early riser. 

The Small Holding, Wet Woods and Scrubby Woods had a reasonable amount of bird activity within them, nothing exceptional, but all the regulars and not so regulars turned out, with GREEN and GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKERS, GOLDCREST, TREECREEPER, NUTHATCH, CHAFFINCH, GOLDFINCH, BULLFINCH, BLUE TIT, GREAT TIT, COAL TIT, LONG TAILED TIT, WREN, DUNNOCK, ROBIN, STOCK DOVE, BLACKBIRD, SONGTHRUSH, MISTLETHRUSH, and JAY all being seen.

The lakes were very quiet again, just the MUTE SWAN family, COOT pair, 4 MALLARDS and 6 MOORHEN were on the water.

I made my way across the Ashes lane Fields, where a SKYLARK was heard flying over and 4 MEADOW PITS got up from the grassland. Nothing at all was on the Pub Field, which has been seeded with yet more ''improved'' grassland, however I did see a pair of CORMORANTS fly over.

A circuit of Migrant Alley was made, where a few BLACK HEADED and HERRING GULLS sat out on one of the paddocks, around 75 STARLINGS were on the sheep pasture along with 30-40 ROOKS. I finished up at the Greenhouse Grounds, adding PHEASANT to my day list, as well as PIED WAGTAIL, COLLARED DOVE and HOUSE SPARROW. A short skywatch for raptors from my seat at Migrant Alley proved fortuitous, as I not only saw the KESTREL pair and the female SPARROWHAWK, but I also watched a SNIPE flyover, a real scarce species for my patch, best of all though I got good views of a PEREGRINE (68) as it sped over towards the Lakes, a new species for the month, that takes the November list to 68, which is the joint best tally for the 13 years  :-)  All the extra hours I'm putting in now seems to be paying off !

Whilst at the Greenhouse Grounds I saw a Red Admiral Butterfly, which was in pretty good conditon for November, I took a few snaps of it with my 400mm lens, not the best for macro shots!

 Red Admiral