Pittswood Birds

For once it was an absolutely cracking May day, it even felt quite warm at 06:30hrs  :-)

In the sunshine this morning, I once again recorded an excellent total of 53 species, mostly the same as yesterday, but 4 species were seen today that weren't on yesterdays list, a PHEASANT, a female MANDARIN DUCK, which flew over to the Wet Woods area, plus a fantastic flyover PEREGRINE, as well as a new species for the month, a COMMON TERN (69) which flew low over the Lakes, a really good bird to get over my patch  :-) On the debit side of things, yesterdays Skylark, Cuckoo, Turtle Dove and Black headed Gulls were missing today. Anyway the Common Tern takes the May list to 69 species now, which looks a bit better in the rankings, moving it up to 5th place out of 12  :-)

Flyover Peregrine, just managed to get the camera on it as it flashed over

Not as near as I would have liked, but good enough!

COMMON BUZZARD, KESTREL and SPARROWHAWK made it four raptor species for the morning, they were all seen up hunting, two Gull species flew over, HERRING and LESSER BLACK BACKED GULL, and the 3 Goose species were again on the paddocks at Migrant Alley, 18 GREYLAGS, 19 CANADA'S and the feral BARNACLE GOOSE.

The SPOTTED FLYCATCHER was heard at the College Grounds, where a GREY HERON was seen flying from one of the small ponds. I also came across this Fox family enjoying the break in the weather  :-)

Fox and Cubs  :-)

In the warm conditions there were a few more Damsels about :-

Azure Damselfly

Immature Azure Damselfly

Azure Damselfly - eating lunch!

Azure Damselfly

I'll post some more Damsel images tomorrow. Ive still got these Butterfly photo's from yesterday to put on yet  :-)

Small White Butterfly

Small White Butterfly

Orange Tip Butterfly - I was annoyed at myself for not getting a more focused image of this lovely posed butterfly, I was in such a hurry to change my lens that I didn't set the camera right afterwards, - Doh!