Pittswood Birds

It was overcast this morning, but not quite as dull as recently, rain fell this afternoon as the wind strengthened, the first for a couple of weeks.

I spent just over three hours out this morning, only visiting the Greenhouse Grounds and Migrant Alley, where I had just under two hours skywatching. The usual regulars were seen at the Greenhouse Grounds, BLACKBIRD, SONGTHRUSH, WREN, ROBIN, DUNNOCK, BLUE TIT, GREAT TIT, CHAFFINCH, GOLDFINCH, CARRION CROW, MAGPIE and COLLARED DOVE, along with the scarcer species such as GREENFINCH, LONG TAILED TIT, GOLDCREST and LINNET, of which there were 3 today.

I twice walked the sheep pasture and paddocks of Migrant Alley, but found no migrant Wheatear, it's not often they turn up here in March, but with 6 of the previous 14 years having them on the March list, it's always worth a look  :-) The BLACK HEADED GULLS were still out on the sheep pasture though, but I found no Med gull today.

Settling down for my sky watch it wasn't long before the usual suspects were seen gong over, more Carrion Crows, ROOKS, WOODPIGEONS, JACKDAWS, plus a few HERING GULLS and LESSER BLACK BACKED GULLS. A YELLOWHAMMER was heard, and seen as a black speck high up in the sky, as were LESSER REDPOLL and SISKIN, plus a few single MEADOW PIPITS.

I was suddenly aware of a call ive not heard for some time coming from the greenhouse Grounds, then, as I scanned through with my bins, I found the caller, a RED LEGGED PARTRIDGE (73,67) sitting up on a stack of pallets ! Not a common bird here with just one or two sightings a year, if that, so a good one for the year list  :-)

Carrying on with my sky watch, I recorded the three local raptor species up hunting, those being the KESTREL and BUZZARD of which a pair were seen, as well as the SPARROWHAWK, a female that put all the Gulls to flight. There were a few FIELDFARE and REDWING going through, with 60-100 birds alighting in the sheep pasture for a while to feed with a flock of STARLINGS, I only counted 9 Redwings though. Other flyovers were............PIED WAGTAIL, SKYLARK, MALLARD, CANADA GOOSE, and MISTLETHRUSH.