Pittswood Birds

Wall to wall sunshine this morning led to a hot and tiring full patch walk, a belter of a summers day though  :-)

The final patch visit of the month, which lasted 5 hours, brought me a total of 43 species, much less than yesterday, but the last couple of hours of todays visit was so warm, the birds melted away into cover earlier than usual.

The most interesting sightings were a LAPWING that flew from one of the paddocks at Migrant Alley, plus the finding of the first newly fledged COAL TITS for the year, surprisingly I found them at the Greenhouse Grounds as I was photographing one of the newly fledged KESTRELS.

No new species were added to the June list, so that ends on 63, which is one short of the 14 year mean average for June, and goes down in joint 9th place. Species like Spotted Flycatcher, Lesser Whitethroat, Cuckoo, plus the Coot and Mute Swans that didn't stay to breed this year, were big omissions this month, on the plus side I did see a Marsh Tit, a species which has not been recorded here in June before, adding one more to the 14 year combined June list which is now at 90.

In the hot sunshine today, I found 3 new Odonata species for the year, bringing the total for 2015 to 17 species, with a Southern Hawker in the Scrubby Woods, a Banded Demoiselle at the drainage ditch at Migrant Alley, which is also where the first Common Darter was found and photographed.

Newly fledged Kestrel first thing this morning

The Female bird was seen a hour later, preening on a greenhouse roof. Just look at that sky!!

Immature Common Darter

Immature Common Darter

Butterfly species and numbers are few here now, with the ever shrinking habitat taking its toll. I haven't recorded Peacock or Holly Blue this month, and have had singles only of Common Blue and small Copper, while no Brown Argus has been recorded at all. Plenty of Skippers, Small Tortoiseshells and as in the photo above, Meadow Browns are about though.