Pittswood Birds

A cool morning, but at least the sun was shining, the cloud only encroaching later on into the morning.

I headed off out for a full patch walk and in the 5 hour visit found a good tally of 48 species, none were new for the month or year lists, but there was plenty to keep me interested.

The highlight for me came early on, when another YELLOW WAGTAIL was seen on one of the paddocks at Migrant Alley, a superb looking male. A few distant shots were taken, but it was disturbed as I sat and waited for it to come nearer, as were the 20-30 Gulls that were on the adjcaent sheep pasture, most were HERRING GULLS but 6 were LESSER BLACK BACKED GULLS.

Distant Yellow Wagtail

It came a touch closer...........

......................Before being disturbed, it then flew off NW

A good check of the fence rails and posts revealed no 'chats' today, but as I passed the Greenhouse Copse, listening all the while to the singing CHIFFCHAFF and BLACKCAP, I saw the LITTLE OWL was staring at me from its roost tree, I took a couple of shots of it, semi shaded as it was.

Little Owl

One WHITETHROAT sang from the Greenhouse Grounds, where there was also a pair of LONG TAILED TITS moving along the boundary hedgerow.

Crossing the Ashes Lane Fields, I saw a BUZZARD fly from an adjacent large garden, then into the Wet Woods, where a TREECREEPER was heard singing, and both GREEN and GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKERS called. At the Scrubby Woods I added GOLDCREST, BULLFINCH, MISTLETHRUSH, SONGTHRUSH, COAL TIT and STOCK DOVE to the days list, but Jay and Nuthatch were not seen at all today.

The lakes were very quiet, but I did see the first GREYLAG GOOSE goslings of the year on the island of the main lake, good to get the 2015 successfully bred list off to a start!

I had a good three hour sky watch later in the morning and into the afternoon, where from my seat at Migrant Alley, in some warm sunshine, I had many sightings of multiple Buzzards, at one time eight were up together, I also had multiple sightings of SPARROWHAWKS and the local KESTRELS, as well as flyovers from YELLOWHAMMER, PIED WAGTAIL and CANADA GEESE,  plus the local SWALLOWS and LINNETS were watched as they moved about the area.