It was cloudy, drizzly, but warm this morning, my patch visit only consisted of a circuit of Migrant Alley, plus a 2 and a half hour sky watch from my seat there .

The initial circuit of the sheep pasture and paddocks, only gave me the regular sightings of ROOKS, CARRION CROWS, JACKDAWS and WOODPIGEONS, plus a small STARLING flock made up of 16 individuals, a more noteworthy sighting though were the 12 HOUSE SPARROWS in a boundary hedge, the biggest gathering of this species here for years! Passing through the Wooded Headland to the north of the paddocks and then a walk past the Greenhouse Copse, I heard the likes of CHIFFCHAFF and BLACKCAP, plus I saw a couple of GREEN and GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKERS.

I arrived at my seat and began to search the skies just as a couple of WHITETHROATS called from the Greenhouse Grounds boundary hedgerow behind me. I was hoping for something new for the months list to fly over, Mistlethrush would have been the most likely species, but I failed to find anything new, it's getting hard to add new species to the July list now!

I did find a few bits of interest though, the highlight being the five raptor species that were seen, these were made up of a PEREGRINE, a SPARROWHAWK, a BUZZARD, a HOBBY and of course the KESTREL family, five raptors on a single sky watch is pretty good for my patch!

Three Gull species flew over, BLACK HEADED, LESSER BLACK BACKED and HERRING GULL, also a couple of single YELLOWHAMMERS flew over, calling as they went. The noise of geese made me scan to the North, where I watched 61 GREYLAG GEESE approach, they passed over my position, then broke into smaller groups, one group of 26 turned around and alighted on one of the paddocks, where they grazed for the next hour. A couple of SKYLARKS were up singing, and small parties of SWIFTS passed through, the only other species seen of any note was a GREY HERON that slowly flapped its way South.

Back to the Dragonflies seen at the Ashdown Forest last Thursday for the blog photo's today. These are the last though!

Male Keeled Skimmer

There were at least 6 of these around, so I got lots of images!

There were also a few of the immatures about

Rain first thing this morning meant a slightly later patch visit for today, the sky brightening and sunny spells breaking through by 08:00hrs.

The three hour visit was a bit shorter than most, so not much out of the usual was noted. A BUZZARD was up over Migrant Alley, a species not seen on yesterdays full patch walk and a YELLOWHAMMER flew over, plus at least 3 SISKINS. The KESTREL family were again active around the Greenhouse Grounds, where a CHIFFCHAFF and 2 WHITETHROATS were also seen, as well as small numbers of LINNET and GOLDFINCH.

Another species not seen on yesterdays patch visit - a LITTLE OWL was heard calling as I walked through the Small Holding area and onto the Wet Woods and Scrubby Woods, where TREECREEPER, GOLDCREST, NUTHATCH, GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER, GREEN WOODPECKER, STOCK DOVE, JAY, BLACKCAP, LONG TAILED TIT, COAL TIT and BULLFINCH were the pick of what was found, the latter two species were another pair not seen on yesterdays full patch walk.

The lakes were empty, but for the MOORHENS, due to the fisherman still being present.

A short time looking for Dragonflies in the Scrubby Woods provided me with good views of a pair of Brown Hawkers hunting, but they didn't stop for a photo, unlike the Southern Hawker that alighted twice for me, but I failed to get close enough for a decent shot, and lost the chance !

After my failings with the camera today, i'll have to post up some images from last Thursdays trip to the Ashdown Forest. These are images of the Small Red Damselfly and the Four Spotted Chaser  :-)