Pittswood Birds

There was heavy cloud cover with a strengthening wind which blew the odd bit of drizzle across the area this morning, a typical December day, never really getting light!

At the end of my 3 hour visit I was thinking about how little I had seen, which in terms of numbers of birds, was indeed quite a poor showing, but there were still some nice birds found that many people would have enjoyed finding during a country walk in mid December :-)

One of which was a BUZZARD that sat low in a small tree in the arable field adjacent to High House Lane. The LITTLE OWL at the Greenhouse Copse would be another, it was kept company by 4 REDWINGS and a pair of BULLFINCH. Also, a good find was that of another female GOOSANDER on the small lake, where both KINGFISHER and GREY HERON were also fishing. The bankside Alders had around 40 GOLDFINCH feeding in them, and the nearby Scrubby Woods had the flock of 6-8 LONG TAILED TITS flitting through the Oak trees, accompanied by NUTHATCH, COAL TIT and GOLDCREST, all nice birds in my book!

The male KESTREL and a SPARROWHAWK were up hunting around the Greenhouse Grounds and Ashes Lane field, where the latter put up the 20 odd MEADOW PIPITS. At Migrant Alley there was a huge flock (for here) of over 500 STARLINGS on the sheep pasture.

So looking back at the visit, it was worth the effort, even if nothing new was added to the months species tally.

Nothing for the camera in todays poor light, but ive got the last of the garden bird images I took during the sunnier spells earlier this week  :-)

GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER

GREENFINCH, in the last rays of the sunshine

GREAT TIT