Pittswood Birds

Short lived glimpses of the sun, early this morning, soon disappeared, as cloud rolled in and showery rain arrived on a brisk SW wind.

My 4 hour visit was dominated by the sight and sound of geese, varying size skeins flew over at intervals, those being of 7, 31, 8, 33 and 65 GREYLAG GEESE, as well as 9, then 74 CANADA GEESE, there were also 7 Canada Geese on the main lake, where the drake MANDARIN DUCK was seen again.

Summer birds were not much in evidence, as is to be expected now, but 2 CHIFFCHAFFS were at the Greenhouse Grounds, with a lone BLACKCAP, plus 2 more Chiffchaffs were seen over in the Scrubby Woods. A lone YELLOW WAGTAIL flew over the sheep pasture at Migrant Alley, but my star sighting for the visit was another STONECHAT that was associating with 7 MEADOW PIPITS along the drainage ditch fence line at the Ashes Lane Fields.

I managed a sky watch from my seat at Migrant Alley that lasted a little over an hour, this produced a GREY WAGTAIL, 7 SISKIN that dropped into the Greenhouse Grounds, a group of 3 MISTLETHRUSHES, 5 HERRING GULLS, 1 LESSER BLACK BACKED GULL, 2 SKYLARKS, plus a few more Meadow Pipits and the 3 regular raptor species - BUZZARD, SPARROWHAWK and KESTREL. Small numbers of SWALLOWS and HOUSE MARTINS trickled through the area, which by the afternoon had increased significantly, with the sky being full of them at times as I watched from my window at home, where I noted 3 Siskin at my garden feeders.

No chance with the camera today in the poor light. A chance then to show the Lapwing images I took at Bough Beech last Thursday  :-)