Pittswood Birds

A largely fine and sunny day was had today, with little wind and mild temperatures it was ideal for a winters patch walk.

The moon was setting in the west.............

.............and the sun was rising in the east

As I took the sunrise photo from the Ashes Lane Fields, I heard the call of MEADOW PIPITS, I turned to see them and found them being harassed by the male SPARROWHAWK! A few BLACK HEADED and HERRING GULLS flew over, and the female KESTREL flew across, heading for the Greenhouse Grounds.

Over on the lakes there were a dozen MALLARD and the COOT pair on the ornamental lake, along with a few MOORHEN, while the main lake was still home to the immature MUTE SWAN, plus the KINGFISHER made it's almost daily appearance. The small lake was devoid of any birds at all.

Around the bankside vegetation and in the Scrubby Woods, the main interest was watching the LONG TAILED TIT flock, carrying with them the likes of NUTHATCH, COAL TIT and GOLDCREST, but no Treecreeper today. At least 4 BULLFINCH were found, after not seeing any yesterday.

Whilst beside the main lake again, some 40 minutes later, I saw the adult Mute Swan pair fly in, alighting on the small lake, they didn't join their youngster at all whilst I was there, also, a GREY HERON dropped in, landing right at the top of a spruce tree at the far side of the lake and for the third day running I had a GOOSANDER circle the lake, eventually flying off SW.

Immature Mute Swan having a stretch

Immature Mute Swan

The Grey Heron that dropped onto the spruce tree, miles away!

I made my way over to the Greenhouse Grounds, then Migrant Alley, but very little was seen at all, the best of it was a pair of BUZZARDS that put up all the ROOKS and JACKDAWS over the sheep pasture, plus a LITTLE OWL that was in the Greenhouse Copse, I got a few images of that, i'll post them up tomorrow  :-) Another day without adding any new species for the December list, it's stalled on 57 at the moment, which is the second lowest December total at this point, I should add Greylag Goose and Siskin though, anything else will be a hard one bonus !

Female BLACKBIRD in the early morning sunshine

EDIT : Wow! Just finished blog, and I'm hearing a TAWNY OWL (58) calling from the Wet Woods, its only 16:37hrs, So I added a new species to the month after all  :-)