Pittswood Birds

There was a little more cloud this morning, but still some good sunny spells, the nagging NE wind was still blowing too.

A full patch walk was undertaken, as is usual for the first day of the new month, but finding bird species was hard work during the 5 hour visit. Here's what I found, in order of Appearance :-

WOODPIGEON, BLACKBIRD, ROBIN, a singing CHIFFCHAFF, MAGPIE, WREN, GOLDCREST, JAY, GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER, JACKDAW, COLLARED DOVE and CARRION CROW were all seen or heard as I set of along Ashes lane. Entering the Greenhouse Gounds, I found GREAT TIT, DUNNOCK, BLUE TIT and the flock of now 50-60 SISKIN / GOLDFINCH feeding in the Alders, split 60/40 in favour of Goldfinch i'd say. A LESSER REDPOLL dropped in to join the finches as I watched the PIED WAGTAILS leaving the Greenhouses, this flurry of activity was as good as the day got!

Male Siskin

A circuit of Migrant Alley gave me STARLING, LINNET, a flyover MISTLETHRUSH, ROOK, and MEADOW PIPIT, which just 6 were found today, plus flyovers from HERRING GULL and the hundreds of GREYLAG and CANADA GEESE. The KESTREL flew from the Greenhouse Copse, where there was a COAL TIT seen, unusual to see one there.

Canada Geese going over.

Making may way across the Pub Field, nothing was added to the days list, the Ashes lane Field was just as deserted, just a GREEN WOODPECKER was added to the months tally from here. The Lakes were brightened by the presence of a KINGFISHER, but apart from a few more Canada Geese, there was not even a Moorhen or mallard seen on them today, very poor! The Adjacent Scrubby Woods proved disappointing too, just CHAFFINCH ( at last!) and BULLFINCH were added to the months list, although it was good to see six of them together  :-)

Next stop was the Wet Woods, where I had a bit more to add to the October list, first was a BUZZARD that flew from it's perch in an Oak tree, then a GREY WAGTAIL was seen feeding around one of the shallow pools, alongside a MOORHEN, I also heard a TREECREEPER calling.

Walking on through the Small Holding, I found GREENFINCH, SONGTHRUSH and HOUSE SPARROW, but not the hoped for Little Owl. My walk back to my Sky watching seat via High House Lane added zilch to the months list and an hours sky watching only added BLACK HEADED GULL, SKYLARK and SWALLOW for the day.

By the visits end I had tallied up 43 species, which although average for a full patch walk, was missing so many common species, such as Pheasant, Mallard, Long Tailed Tit, Stock Dove, Nuthatch and Sparrowhawk. I did add NUTHATCH and SPARROWHAWK to my list later in the day as they visited my garden, the latter really is keeping the birds away from my feeding station at the moment, with continual fly throughs and attempted ambushes from the Leylandi tree over looking my garden!