Pittswood Birds

A four hour visit to my patch this morning produced a relatively low species count of 44. Conditions were cool damp and cloudy, which didn't help, only one brief bright interval around 09:30 brought out a few butterflies, but some frequent showers set in shortly after.
so where have all the birds gone ? just singles of most species were seen, and the singing was limited to a BLACKCAP, a SONGTHRUSH, a CHIFFCHAFF and one or two WRENS. STARLING was the 38th species on my list - just one flew over! The only bird to put up any show, was surprisingly, the TURTLE DOVES, four were seen on telephone wires over at the lake/scrub area (one of these could of been a youngster, but they were a bit to distant to confirm) and one was at the scrub along the headland of migrant alley. Two small groups of SWIFTS flew over, as did HERRING and LESSER BLACK BACK GULLS, and a KESTREL was hunting over the tree nursery. A bit of a disappointing morning really.

Now the Buddlea has flowered, some good shots of butterflies can be had. (Once the sun's out!) There were four Comma Butterflies and a Red Admiral on this plant

This Juv, Songthrush had found a large snail, at the college gardens.

Also at the college gardens, on one of the ponds was this Grey heron