Pittswood Birds

Pulses of wetting, drizzly rain blew through the area this morning, the accompanying stiff, gusty breeze making it feel very October like!

Needless to say, it was a pretty poor patch visit in the conditions, I spent a while scanning the skies at Migrant Alley, hoping the poor weather may force a wader species low over the pasture and paddocks, but I failed to record any, just a few each of BLACK HEADED and HERRING GULL, plus a LESSER BLACK BACKED GULL were seen. A few SWIFTS, maybe 20-30 in all also moved through and another SAND MARTIN was feeding over the sheep pasture with the SWALLOWS, where a MISTLETHRUSH was feeding with the ROOKS and JACKDAWS.

The three regular Raptor species were also up hunting, those being a  BUZZARD, a SPARROWHAWK that had successfully caught breakfast, plus the KESTREL family at the Greenhouse Grounds, where CHIFFCHAFF, BLACKCAP and 5 WHITETHROATS, probably the family that bred there, were seen.

I made some attempt at a visit to the Scrubby Woods, but the wind made it difficult, GREEN and GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKERS, NUTHATCH, COAL TIT plus a few more Chiffchaffs and Blackcaps were the best of what I found, a scan of the main lake gave me good views of 2 female MANDARIN DUCKS, but nothing else was with them, nor was there anything on the other two water bodies today.

This afternoon the sun appeared for brief moments, but the wind had increased further, so I set off to the Greenhouse Grounds to try and find some Dragonflies or Butterflies, there wasn't a sniff of the former insects, but I was surprised by the number of Butterflies I found, which included a Painted Lady, a Small Copper, a couple of Large Skippers, a few Small Skippers ( which a possible Essex Skipper was among) plus my first 3 Common Blue Butterflies since May. I took some photo's of the latter, but in the gusty wind and ever changing light, the images weren't up to much, Still, they are all I have to post today! So..............