Pittswood Birds

Variable amounts of cloud obscured the sun at times this morning, but there were still some good sunny spells had. A moderate NE wind made it feel a little chillier than of late.

The sun this morning was a pleasing shade of yellows, reds and pinks - shame about the power cables! ( Blogger seems to have over sharpened the image again, ruined it!)

A few minutes later, the sun had risen above the cables, but had lost most of its colours

Back to the birds...............I had a full patch walk in the pleasant conditions, finding a total of 45 species in the just under 4 hour visit, which is a little above average, but as always there were some species that could have been expected that were not found, like Mistlethrush, Linnet, Grey Heron, Coal Tit and even the Kestrel was missing today!

I did get some excitement early on though, a LAPWING (60) joined the October list as it flew over Migrant Alley, 11 more flew high over Bustard Hill and a further 14 flew high over the pub field, these however, exciting as they were for my patch, couldn't match my elation at seeing 41 BRENT GEESE (102,61) fly high over Migrant Alley, this is just the second year ever that I have recorded this species for my patch, the other was last year, on Oct 10th and 25th.

A few other bits of interest were also found this morning, a CHIFFCHAFF was seen at the Ashes Lane Fields, a KINGFISHER was back on the lakes, plus flyover MEADOW PIPIT, SKYLARK, YELLOWHAMMER and LESSER REDPOLLS were seen. The SISKIN and GOLDFINCH flock at the Greenhouse Grounds had diminished to around 20 birds, a SPARROWHAWK hunted over the sheep pasture where a BUZZARD was also seen later in the visit.

I took these BLUE TIT images from my garden yesterday afternoon, not much else braves the Sprawk attacks!