Pittswood Birds

The last patch visit of the month was a bit of a let down, mainly due to the weather conditions when a moderate, cool wind blew constant drizzle across the area.

There was one highlight of the visit though, out on the sheep pasture at Migrant Alley 105 gulls were feeding, 103 of those were BLACK HEADED GULLS, 1 was a COMMON GULL and the other was was a MEDITERRANEAN GULL, my second this year, but it's a scarce patch bird!

Other noteworthy finds for my patch this morning were - a male KESTREL hunting at the Small Holding, 13 CANADA GEESE and a GREYLAG GOOSE visiting the main lake. A pair of SKYLARK were over the Ashes Lane Fields plus around 140 FIELDFARE and 9 REDWING were feeding on sheep pasture next to the Greenhouse Grounds.

Flyovers from HERRING GULL, PIED WAGTAIL and YELLOWHAMMER were the best I could come up with today.

The February list ended on a respectable 65 species, the average for the previous 5 Februaries, this is the joint 4th best February tally of the 14 years, the same tally as 2011. No new species were added to the combined 14 year February list, which remains on 87.

The year list is bumbing along ok with 68 species so far, two ahead of last year, but way behind 2013 which had 75 species by this time.

Here'a some comparable figures for the end of February patch totals for this and the previous 6 years :-

2009 - 73
2010 - 69
2011 - 73
2012 - 69
2013 - 75
2014 - 66
2015 - 68

This gives an average for the 7 years of a little above 70 Species.

Looking ahead, March is upon us, and the first trickle of summer Migrants can be expected, Sand Martin, Swallow, Wheatear, Black Redstart, Chiffchaff, Blackcap and Willow Warbler have all turned up here in March, i'll be fortunate to get 3 of those species in the March of the same year though!

A few images left in the blog folder to show, the first being a Coot from Bough Beech that I forgot to put up yesterday!

COOT

BLACKBIRD

GOLDFINCH