Pittswood Birds

A shorter patch visit this morning, under mostly cloudy skies, was worth the effort as I had some different species turn up from the last couple of visits, one of those a new tick for the month / year list  :-)

Over at the lakes the COOT pair look to be settling in well, as do the MUTE SWAN pair, just 4 MALLARDS were also seen, but 8 CANADA GEESE and a lone GREYLAG GOOSE were also present today.

In the Wet Woods and Scrubby Woods TREECREEPER, COAL TIT and GOLDCREST song was heard, with a total of 9 of the latter being seen overall today. The LONG TAILED TITS look to have split into pairs already, three separate pairs were seen.

Coal Tit, from my garden on Tuesday

The highlight for the visit today was seen flying over Migrant Alley - a LITTLE EGRET (67,64) this is a bonus species for my patch and can be missed from the year list quite easily, as they are mostly only ever seen as flyovers, had I arrived at Migrant Alley 30secs later I would have missed this one, then who knows how long the next one might take to cross my path!

Out on the sheep pasture and paddocks there were 100+ BLACK HEADED GULLS and 2 COMMON GULLS along with the large mixed Corvid flock, plus around 100 WOODPIGEONS There were  FIELDFARES and REWDINGS scattered over most of the paddocks, an estimate of 75-100 birds in all.

I braved the chilly wind and ever darkening skies for a sky watch from my seat at Migrant Alley, spurred on by the Egret sighting I sat for an hour, recording flyovers from single SKYLARK, YELLOWHAMMER, LESSER BLACK BACKED GULL, CORMORANT and PIED WAGTAIL, also a pair of BUZZARDS went over low, and the female KESTREL swiftly flew past heading for the Ashes Lane Fields, no doubt after a MEADOW PIPIT lunch, of which I saw 10-15 there earlier in the walk. 

The Little Egret takes the months list to 64, the  same tally as the whole of last February and the 5th best February so far, while the year list moves on to 67, this time last year I had reached 66 for the year and 63 for the month, so I'm a bit ahead :-)