Pittswood Birds

In complete contrast to yesterday, the weather this morning was sunny and warm, albeit a bit windy.

I made a five hour full patch walk from 06:30hrs, finding a decent tally of bird species, 46 in all, but failed to find the Long Tailed Tit, Jay and Pheasant that could have been expected. There were few surprises for the visit, but I did at last add MISTLETHRUSH (61) to the months list, a pair of which flew over the Scrubby Woods. The 2015 July tally now stands in joint 11th place out of the 14 years of recording and is 10 behind the 2014 record tally.

A couple of CORMORANTS, a GREY HERON and two HERRING GULLS were the best of the flyovers early on in the walk, and the regular 3 raptor species were up hunting, those being SPARROWHAWK, BUZZARD and KESTREL, only one of the latter was seen today, a possible youngster, so maybe the family have split.

The six GREYLAG GEESE were out on the paddocks at Migrant Alley, where a few LINNETS and the small STARLING flock were also seen, no sign of the dozen House Sparrows that were seen here in the hedgerow yesterday though. A YELLOWHAMMER was singing along High House Lane, and two SKYLARKS sang over Bustard Hill, the bean crop there attracting a family of WHITETHROATS today.

13 CANADA GEESE had returned to the main lake, but just 1 MALLARD and a MOORHEN family were seen on the other two water bodies. The adjacent Scrubby Woods had song from just BLACKCAP and SONGTHRUSH, but calls from GOLDCREST, TREECREEPER, NUTHATCH, GREAT SPOTTED and GREEN WOODPECKERS, STOCK DOVE and CHIFFCHAFF were all heard there.

This PIED WAGTAIL was feeding a nest full of young at the Greenhouse Grounds

A Blackcap was seen in my garden Elder tree as I left for my walk, barely any of the berries are ripe yet, but that didn't seem to matter to him!

This Common Darter was the only Odonata species to pose for me today, although I had views of Brown Hawker and Southern Hawker too

Common Darter, female