Pittswood Birds

The early cloud soon dispersed, leaving long sunny periods for this mornings full patch walk.

The first bird I saw as I left the house was a FIELDFARE, just one sat at the top of a tree opposite my house, nice to have one stay a while rather than just flyover! A BUZZARD was seen flying from the Pub Field, and at least 20 MEADOW PIPITS were on the Ashes Lane Fields, where both GREEN and GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKERS were seen in the boundary trees. Three STOCK DOVES flew from the Wet Woods, plus 3 more Great Spotted Woodpeckers were chasing around the place.

On the lakes the long staying KINGFISHER was seen again, as was the GREY HERON that's been visiting over the past few mornings, other than those, it was just down to noting the COOT pair, a few MALLARDS and a few MOORHENS, plus of course the MUTE SWAN family, which were all on the small lake, and i'm very pleased to say, that later on, I saw all three of them take off from the lake and fly southwards, fantastic, after seeing that youngster trapped by the feet on the barbed wire last Friday, and that pool of blood beneath it, I would never of thought it possible, what a tough bird and good luck to it  :-)

After walking through the Scrubby Woods, where all the scarcer woodland birds were seen, like LONG TAILED TIT, COAL TIT, GOLDCREST, BULLFINCH, TREECREEPER, JAY and NUTHATCH, plus the more common regulars like BLACKBIRD, SONGTHRUSH, WREN, DUNNOCK, CHAFFINCH, GOLDFINCH, GREAT TIT and BLUE TIT, I went and had a look over the lakes again, but nothing had changed, but then as I watched a CORMORANT fly over across the blue sky, I saw a small flock of 6 Ducks coming my way, they circled round the main lake before flying off again, they were GOOSANDERS (57) ! Just minutes later another pair came over, this time a female came in and splashed down onto the main lake, very nice addition to the December list :-)

Over on the sheep pasture and paddocks of Migrant Alley, very little has changed, just the ROOKS and JACKDAWS, plus the STARLING flock and a few BLACK HEADED GULLS are there. I heard, then saw, a YELLOWHAMMER fly over whilst there, plus a few REDWINGS and another 4 Fieldfare also flew over. The Greenhouse Grounds was being hunted over by the female KESTREL, but other than that the only birds there, that hadn't yet gone into the notebook this morning, were a couple of PIED WAGTAILS and a pair of PHEASANTS, they took the mornings tally to a very good 45 species  :-)

Female Goosander, I wasn't able to get less than 50m from it unfortunately

Nice to get some kind of record shot of Goosander anyway

I got a bit closer to this Coal Tit in my garden later in the afternoon

Also got a couple of Great Spotted Woodpecker images, just not quite in the right position for the light.