Pittswood Birds

It was mostly cloudy this morning, with just a few short sunny periods, hardly summer, but better than most of whats been before!

I spent two hours sky watching this morning from my seat at Migrant Alley, the hope was for a possible Wader species to fly over on return Autumn migration, always a rare occurrence, but it has happened in the past, with species as unlikely as Little Ringed Plover, Green Sandpiper, Greenshank, Curlew, Golden Plover and Whimbrel all being recorded. Anyway it all remained a dream, as none flew through today, not even my second best hope of a House Martin for the months list was forthcoming.

The fly through species I did record, were; LESSER BLACK BACKED GULL, HERRING GULL, BLACK HEADED GULL and GREY HERON. Sightings of BUZZARD, SPARROWHAWK, KESTREL and HOBBY made it another 4 Raptor species day, plus a few local species moving around the area kept me busy, like GREEN WOODPECKER, GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER, SWIFT, SWALLOW, WOODPIGEONS, COLLARED DOVES various finches, Tits, and Corvids. A bit of song from BLACKCAP, WHITETHROAT and CHIFFCHAFF coming from the Greenhouse Grounds was also enjoyed.

After my sky watch I wandered off to the Scrubby Woods and along the edge of the Wet Woods to look for Butterflies and Dragonflies, finding my two first recently fledged MAGPIES of the year in the former mentioned habitat, but few Odonata were seen there, just a single Brown hawker and a Beautiful Demoiselle, but to be fair I couldn't get to most of my usual Dragon spots due to the bramble growth. I again saw a Ringlet Butterfly there, as well as Purple Hairstreak, Comma, Red Admiral, Meadow Brown and both Small and Large Skippers and the usual Whites. The edge of the Wet Woods was similarly disappointing, by now the breeze was up and the cloud had increased making for not ideal conditions, but I did see Ruddy Darter, Common Darter, Emperor Dragonfly, another Brown Hawker and a few White-legged Damselflies.

Meadow Brown Butterfly

Large Skipper