Pittswood Birds

Another one of those mornings that never really got light! There was also drizzle and light rain in the air just to make things bleaker!

Unsurprisingly, very little of note was seen on my 3 hour patch visit, the immature MUTE SWAN was back on the ornamental lake, I didn't expect to see it back so soon, the COOT pair remain together and will hopefully breed again this year, but the only other birds on the water were MALLARDS and MOORHENS.

I searched the Scrubby Woods for a possible Woodcock, but I think unless we get a proper cold spell with some Northerly element to the wind, it will prove a fruitless task trying to get this species on my 2015 patch list, past records have always come in cold weather.

I did at least add MISTLETHRUSH (54) to the 2015 patch list, one was in the large garden adjacent to the lakes, and another was singing from a garden adjacent to Migrant Alley. A BUZZARD was seen flying from the Wet Woods, and the KESTREL pair were at the Greenhouse Grounds, where the GREY WAGTAIL was again present, the LITTLE OWL was seen at the Greenhouse Copse, these were the best species recorded today.

I ended up cleaning out my nest boxes towards the end of the visit and moved a couple from the Wet Woods into the Greenhouse Grounds, hopefuly they will be successful there this year :-)

This afternoon I was looking out into my garden, watching the comings and goings of 20+ BLUE TITS and was thinking how nice it was not to have the Sparrowhawk harassing the birds everyday, well, I was soon brought back down to earth when a smart, male SPARROWHAWK (55) made its 2015 entrance! Luckily for the Blue Tits it missed them all  :-)

I took a dodgy photo of the Sparrowhawk as it was hiding up in the leylandi tree at the bottom of the garden, better than no photo at all I guess!

Garden Sprawk

Garden ROBIN ( taken last week)