Pittswood Birds

It was cloudy with spots of rain for the first full patch walk of the new month, later the cloud broke to give some sunny spells.

There were very few birds about this morning, but I did eventually, after over 5 hours, find an average total of 44 species. I left home just before 07:00hrs, heading for the lakes via the Small Holding and Wet Woods where I kicked off the November species list, with, in order of appearance, WOODPIGEON, STARLING, ROBIN, JACKDAW, CARRION CROW, PHEASANT, BLACKBIRD, MAGPIE, DUNNOCK, HOUSE SPARROW, COLLARED DOVE, GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER, HERRING GULL, BUZZARD, CHAFFINCH, BLUE TIT, GOLDCREST, JAY, WREN (Finally!) GREEN WOODPECKER and GREAT TIT.

Arriving at the lakes I was pleased to get KINGFISHER on the November list, I also added GREY HERON, but after much scanning I couldn't find the Little Grebe that was here yesterday. MUTE SWAN, MALLARD and MOORHEN were added to months list, then quickly after, I was passed by a mixed feeding flock, which gave me LONG TAILED TIT and COAL TIT for the day. A couple of BULLFINCH flew over as I was in the Scrubby Woods, as I watched them a few BLACK HEADED GULLS passed over, the only other species I added from the Scrubby Woods was a SONGTHRUSH.

I was soon out walking the Ashes Lane Field, Pub Field and Migrant Alley, where the species only slowly revealed themselves, virtually all being flyovers, these were from PIED WAGTAIL, MEADOW PIPIT, SKYLARK, ROOK and a mixed skein of CANADA and GREYLAG GEESE.

I checked the Greenhouse Copse for the Little Owl, but it wasn't about today, then a pre sky watch check of the Greenhouse Grounds was made, but only GOLDFINCH was found for the months list there. My skywatch added  some good species for November though, the best being 2 SNIPE that flew low over just as I sat down on my seat, CORMORANT, YELLOWHAMMER, STOCK DOVE, SPARROWHAWK, and KESTREL made up the species for todays walk  :-)

Once home I checked the garden feeders, and as anticipated found the GREENFINCH and NUTHATCH that were missing from my morning walk, thus ending the first day of the month with a good tally of 46 species, but that's a long way behind the record tally of 68 that I found in November 2010, which will be the target over the next 29 days  :-)

Images courtesy of my garden again.......

 I had 4 of these Great Spotted Woodpeckers in the garden at the same time today!

A dozen Goldfinch were coming in, but the Sparrowhawk came and took one, bloody thing is back again  :-(

Starling