Pittswood Birds

There was a hard frost this morning, with patchy cloud drifting over the area from time to time, at least the frost has hardened most of the mud!

 Patchy cloud, that always seemed to be where the sun was!

I was out for over six hours today, but found nothing new for the year/months list, it is still very much ''as you were'' for the time being, especially as the lakes were frozen over, it will be there that I am likely to find the next new species for the year, either there, or a flyover.

A few good species were seen today though, a flock of at least 25 MEADOW PIPIT were on the Ashes Lane Fields, along with 2 MISTLETHRUSH, 6 FIELDFARE, 8 REDWING and 40-50 STARLINGS.

The Scrubby Woods and Wet Woods were attracting plenty of GOLDCREST, they were seen along with COAL TIT, BULLFINCH, LONG TAILED TIT, and NUTHATCH, the latter were giving their spring 'wee wee wee'' calls, making it sound quite springlike, especially when they were joined by singing GREAT TIT and STOCK DOVE, plus the GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKERS drumming. The GREY WAGTAIL was also in the Wet Woods, I spent ages waiting for the combination of it to come nearer and the sun to appear, but neither happened at the same time  :-(

I got just three shots of it in the end as it fed on the surface of the iced over pools of water, this being the best of a bad bunch!

A male SPARROWHAWK was seen hunting over the area on 3 separate occasions, the only other raptors today were the KESTREL pair at the Greenhouse Grounds, where another pair of Long tailed Tits were seen, as were another 2 Bullfinches. Migrant Alley was good for BLACK HEADED GULLS again, with them were 2 COMMON GULLS, plus the usual Corvid flock and the WOODPIGEONS.

Half an hour before sunset, I was looking out at my garden feeders and noticed a small Goose or large duck flyover, unfortunately the only view I got was a silhouette of its rear end as it flew into the sunset, could of been a Shelduck or a Goosander, i'll never know, but it was certainly a year tick missed, as well as a ''seen from house'' tick as well !

Female Kestrel at the Greenhouse Grounds - obliging as ever, pity the male isn't as tame!

She looks so much more photogenic on a tree than on the Greenhouses, I took some images of her there as well though, plus a few other birdy photo's, which will keep the blog going for a few posts  :-)