Pittswood Birds

Early cloud slowly broke up to leave a morning of sunny spells, in which it felt warm. sticky and humid.

WOODPIGEON

There wasn't too much about this morning, but my four hour visit did provide me with a few bits of interest and modest excitement  :-)

Two GREY WAGTAILS were visiting the water intake area of the Greenhouse Grounds, hopefully they will spend some time here this Autumn and I might just get a photo of one! The 50-60 GOLDFINCH were feeding on thistle heads nearby, plus a few warblers were seen in the remaining scrubby area, those being 4 WHITETHROAT, 2 BLACKCAP and a CHIFFCHAFF.

There were no migrants at Migrant Alley this morning, but two SAND MARTINS flew over it, as did a skein of 21 CANADA GEESE. No Kestrels were seen today, but three or four BUZZARDS flew over, plus the SPARROWHAWK was hunting around the area.

A visit to the lakes was worth the effort today, not for what was on the water, as there was nothing of note apart from the KINGFISHER, but for a brief view of only my second record of SPOTTED FLYCATCHER (73) this year, it was feeding from a silver birch which overhung the main lake. The months list now reaches 73, the fourth best August total from 14, what else can I find I wonder!

In the adjacent Scrubby Woods there seemed to be fewer Blackcaps feeding in the Elder Bushes, but a mixed feeding flock containing around 30 birds, made up of BLUE TITS, GREAT TITS, LONG TAILED TITS, CHAFFINCH, TREECREEPER, NUTHATCH, and GOLDCREST made up for it. GREEN and GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKERS were also seen and a COAL TIT sang a few notes, along with a Chiffchaff.

I spent some time looking for Dragonflies, mainly the Migrant Hawkers, but although I saw a couple, they were perched up too high to photograph, so I resorted to my old favorites the Southern Hawkers, which always pose nicely for me!

Southern Hawker, Male

As I watched, it kept bending its abdomen, normally a prelude to passing waste from its body!

I took these images with my new Canon 100-400mm mk2 lens, which I would say gives almost as good an image as my 100mm macro lens

I really want to get a Migrant Hawker to pose like this for me!