Pittswood Birds

This morning was cloudy but dry, with some brighter intervals developing as the morning went on. I covered most of my patch, finding 42 species, which is about about average for a November visit, however, 3 of those were new to the months list.

The expected MISTLETHRUSH (59) was the first new November addition, one flew over the Small Holding as I passed through it to get to the lakes, also a GREY WAGTAIL flew over calling as it went.

Over at the lakes I was pleased to find that a pair of COOT (60) had returned to the ornamental lake, the last Coot here was on 9th October, lets hope they stay around for a while yet  :-)  The Scrubby Woods didn't provide Treecreeper or Nuthatch today, but the other regular woodland species showed up, with LONG TAILED TIT, GOLDCREST, COAL TIT, BULLFINCH, JAY, SONGTHRUSH, GREAT SPOTTED and GREEN WOODPECKER all being found.

The third new species for the month was the LESSER BLACK BACKED GULL (61), two passed over the Ashes Lane Field, this is the last of the species I anticipated to find this month, anything else will be a bonus! Also seen at the Ashes Lane Fields were 3 MEADOW PIPITS, and 2 flyover SKYLARKS, the adjacent Pub Field again had a BUZZARD feeding on it.

My sky watch over at Migrant Alley provided CORMORANT, HERRING GULL, BLACK HEADED GULL, YELLOWHAMMER, GREYLAG GOOSE, CANADA GOOSE (2 and 55 respectively), as well as the KESTREL pair up hunting, but not a single winter thrush was seen today.

It will be hard going now to find more new species for the month, the tally so far of 61 is only the 7th best November tally out of 13, and still 7 species behind the record tally set in 2010, but Lapwing, Mandarin Duck and Peregrine aren't totally out of the frame, and maybe the first Brambling of the year will turn up   :-)

This female Pheasant was photographed yesterday, a species not found today

ROBIN

BLACKBIRD