Pittswood Birds

As yesterday morning, this morning dawned clear, sunny and frosty, allowing for a good 3 and a half hour patch visit, cloud started to build in by midday, when it became overcast, before once again turning sunny later in the afternoon.

Despite not covering all the habitats on my patch, I found a reasonable amount of activity from the bird life here, the mornings tally reached 42 species, but Jay, Pheasant, Mistlethrush, Grey wagtail and Skylark were off the list after putting in recent appearances.

Nothing was added to the months list, which at 63 lies in joint 6th place in the rankings, hopefully I can add a couple more species before the months end to equal the average tally achieved for the previous 5 Februaries.

Highlights seen today were modest, the 3 local raptor species are always an impressive sight, with the KESTREL pair seen well at the Greenhouse Grounds, where later in my walk I saw 3 BUZZARDS up together soaring low, another Buzzard was seen first thing in the Wet Woods. A male SPARROWHAWK was hunting at the Small Holding, no doubt on the way to my nearby garden feeders!

At least 200 BLACK HEADED GULLS flew from the sheep pasture at Migrant Alley, the large flock was seen as I crossed the Ashes Lane Field, so I don't know what put them all to flight, the Ashes Lane Fields had at least 8 MEADOW PIPITS but nothing else of note.

When I arrived at Migrant Alley it was completely birdless, but as I sat and sky watched, which only produced flyovers from YELLOWHAMMER, PIED WAGTAIL, and HERRING GULL, I watched the Black headed Gulls return in small numbers, just 20-30 whilst I was there, but more impressive were the numbers of Corvids that dropped in, I counted 218, most of those being ROOKS, with JACKDAWS and a few CARRION CROWS mixed in.

The LITTLE OWL sat at its roost site in the nearby Greenhouse Copse, and was heard to give a few calls, plus BULLFINCH and LONG TAILED TIT were at the Greenhouse Grounds.

Nothing of real note on the Lakes today, but I am always pleased to have the MUTE SWAN and COOT pair present nowadys  :-)

GREAT TIT these were giving thier ''Teacher Teacher'' calls all morning

The NUTHATCH gave its spring ''wee wee wee '' calls

While the ROBINS sang from just about everywhere