Pittswood Birds

Dense fog covered the area this morning, not clearing properly until gone 09:00hrs

In the poor conditions very little was noted as I walked a circuit of Migrant Alley, just 4 LINNETS and an audible flyover MEADOW PIPIT were of any note.

A visit to the Wet Woods and Scrubby Woods was equally as disappointing, in Aprils gone past I could have anticipated hearing Cuckoo, Lesser Whitethroat, Turtle Dove, Willow warbler and Nightingale, maybe even an early Garden warbler, but sadly they will all now be premium patch visitors, and as such, bonus birds for my year list, at least the BLACKCAPS and CHIFFCHAFFS are still finding enough decent habitat to breed in, I watched the latter building a nest under some Bramble  :-)

Once the fog had cleared I headed back off to Migrant Alley, in some warm sunshine, a bit late for anything exciting there with all the disturbance, but as I sat watching the BUZZARDS soaring on every horizon, four LESSER BLACK BACKED GULLS dropped onto the sheep pasture, then better still, a pair of REED BUNTINGS (82,64) alighted on the boundary hedgerow that borders the Greenhouse Grounds, a real scarce bird here, mainly recorded in Autumn, so it's good to get one on my year list now  :-)

An afternoon visit around the Greenhouse Grounds to look for Butterflies only produced a few flighty Small Tortoiseshells and a Peacock, it was on this date last year I recorded the first Orange Tip, I noted their favoured flower, the Cuckoo Flower, is coming into bloom, so they should be out any day now. As I left for home, I saw a WHITETHROAT feeding voraciously, so much so it took very little notice of my presence, it seemed to have a damaged wing, but could fly well enough  :-) A SPARROWHAWK was seen displaying over the Wet Woods as I neared home, but there was no sign of the Kestrel pair today.