Pittswood Birds

Once again it was another dreary morning, with low cloud and occasional drizzle.

I carried out a five hour full patch walk, in which a total of 42 bird species were seen, a little on the low side, with regulars like Long Tailed Tit, Coal Tit, Sparrowhawk, Buzzard and Pheasant not being found. I did however find my first BULLFINCH young of the year, in a garden adjacent to the Small Holding area, this takes this years successfully bred list to 38, Jay and Collared Dove fledglings may well yet be found, but they will probably be the last, Stock Dove, Tawny Owl and Little Owl probably have successfully bred, and I might just find a Turtle Dove youngster yet, but I rarely find young for these species, Spotted Flycatcher and Lesser Whitethroat are the latest species to become 'X' breeders at Pittswood  :-(  So a total nearing 40 species looks to be it for the 2015 successfully bred list, the average number of successfully bred species for the last 4 years is 43.

The rest of the walk had little to get excited about, I watched the KESTREL family at the Greenhouses Grounds and enjoyed a bit of song from SKYLARK, BLACKCAP, CHIFFCHAFF, WHITETHROAT, SONGTHRUSH, and GOLDCREST. Flyovers were few, just 5 HERRING GULLS, 4 BLACK HEADED GULLS, a GREY HERON and a YELLOWHAMMER were of note. Early in the visit the sky was full of SWIFTS moving through the area.

In the poor light the camera was redundant again, and the blog photo folder has run dry  :-(