Pittswood Birds

Early cloud soon drifted east, leaving some good long sunny spells for a four hour full patch walk this morning.

As has been the case for most of my December full patch walks, the days species tally was a bit below what might have been be expected, with 38 species being found, species like Grey Heron, Cormorant, Yellowhammer, Skylark, Coal Tit, Greenfinch, Sparrowhawk, Fieldfare, Redwing, Mistlethrush, Canada or Greylag Goose all could have reasonably been expected, but none turned out, in fact I haven't yet added Greylag Goose to the months list.

It was a case of once again finding the regular common species, with a few scarcer ones thrown in, like the pair of LITTLE OWLS that were in the Greenhouse Copse sitting in the same tree, and the GREY WAGTAIL that flew over the Greenhouse Grounds, where the KESTREL pair were hunting. A BUZZARD was a nice sighting as it flew over the sheep pasture at Migrant Alley, putting up all the ROOKS, JACKDAWS, WOODPIGEONS, STARLINGS, BLACK HEADED GULLS and 6 MEADOW PIPITS.

The best of what the Small Holding, Wet Woods, and Scrubby Woods could offer today, were TREECREEPER, NUTHATCH, GOLDCREST, JAY, STOCK DOVE, BULLFINCH, GREEN and GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKERS.

Once again only the ornamental lake had any life on it, that being the MUTE SWAN family, the adults had arrived back after not being their yesterday, plus the COOT pair a dozen MALLARDS and a scattering of MOORHENS.

Half way through the month now and i'm struggling to add anything new for the December list, ive not added anything in the last 5 visits  :-(

At least with the arrival of some sunshine, the camera has accompanied me for a couple of days, here's a few of todays snaps, I'll save the Little owl photo for tomorrow, as it looks like poor weather tomorrow.

Flyover Buzzard, just about in camera range

SONGTHRUSH

PIED WAGTAIL, it was a challenging subject to photograph, being black and white, with a bright background and the sun shining from the side, good practice though  :-)