Pittswood Birds

A visit to Sevenoaks Wildfowl Reserve this morning, with a good mate of mine, is a near annual festive treat, pity the weather wasn't in such a festive mood though, with strong winds and lashing rain endured throughout the time we were there, typically as we left it brightened up!

Our reward for sticking out the conditions was finding 45 bird species, most of these being seen from the shelter of the hides, where out on the water plenty of duck species were seen, these being MALLARD, TUFTED DUCK, WIGEON, GADWALL, TEAL, SHOVELER, SHELDUCK, and POCHARD, with those were the likes of LITTLE GREBE, GREAT CRESTED GREBE, COOT, MOORHEN, GREYLAG, CANADA and EGYPTIAN GEESE as well as a few CORMORANTS, plus a couple of grey HERONS.

At least 11 SNIPE were seen out on the islands, where there also 100's of LAPWINGS gathered, plus 100's more of BLACK HEADED GULLS with HERRING and COMMON GULLS among them, but just 1 LESSER BLACK BACK GULL was seen, that being a flyover.The odd MAGPIE, JACKDAW and CARRION CROW foraged among the hoards, where a couple of PIED WAGTAILS could just about be seen.

Some effort was put into looking in the surrounding woods, but the conditions were not conducive at all, however the likes of  LONG TAILED TIT, COAL TIT, GREAT TIT, BLUE TIT, GOLDFINCH, CHAFFINCH, GOLDCREST, TREECREEPER, SISKIN, JAY, STOCK DOVE, WOODPIGEON, BLACKBIRD, WREN, DUNNOCK, ROBIN and GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER were all found, there were some glaring omissions from our list, like Dunnock, Greenfinch, Songthrush, Redwing, Mistlethrush and Green woodpecker, no doubt had the weather been kinder and our stay  longer we would have found them eventually. It was notable that only FIELDFARE seen were half a dozen feeding on a distant field off the reserve.

In all, despite the weather, it was still a good mornings outing and a nice change of both scenery and birdlife from my routine walks at Pittswood  :-)

A few images to brighten the post, again these are from my garden feeders, taken yesterday.

The male Greenfinches are coulouring up nicely, ready for the coming breeding season

This looks to be a female, much dowdier, but then again it could be a first winter female, sometimes it's hard to tell with this species  :-)

Nuthatch

Collared Dove

Blue Tit

Lesser Redpoll