Pittswood Birds

After a sunny start to the day, a brisk wind develped, bringing cloud in by 09:00hrs, before clearing again by 13:00hrs to leave a humid and hot afternoon.

I awoke this morning with a streaming cold!! My intended 'full patch walk' was postponed therefore, as I didn't feel up to a four or five hour walk, so instead a more leisurely sky watch was had from my seat at Migrant Alley. I had had reports from a friend just to the north of my patch that he had put up two Greenshank whilst out metal detecting in a field, my sky watch didn't include such rarities, but it did produce my first sighting of the local PEREGRINE (62) this month. BUZZARD and KESTREL were also seen, along with their respective young.

SWIFTS and SWALLOWS were seen up in the early blue sky, then as the cloud rolled in the three Gull species of LESSER BLACK BACKED, HERRING and BLACK HEADED GULL all flew over. A couple of SKYLARKS flew up from the nearby sheep pasture at Migrant Alley, where there were also 15 CANADA GEESE and 8 GREYLAG GEESE.

I soon got annoyed with sitting and having constant sneezing fits, and called it a day soon after 09:00hrs. This afternoon the sun came back out, of course I was tempted out with my Camera, and headed for the sunny stretch of the south facing Wet Woods to try and find some Butterflies and Dragonflies, the latter are still woefully in short supply this summer, with just singles of Brown Hawker, Ruddy Darter, and Azure Damselfly seen, plus a few White-legged Damselflies, as i said very poor  :-(  There were a few Butterfly species about though, the star of the show being a Silver Washed fritillary, a real bonus species on my patch. I also saw Purple Hairstreak, Peacock, Red Admiral, Comma, Small Tortoiseshell, Large and Small Whites, Small Skipper, Meadow Brown and Gatekeeper............Not a single photo was taken though, my heart wasn't really in it as I kept sneezing away!