Pittswood Birds

Apart from a short lived, but annoying bank of cloud early this morning, which messed up a couple of decent photo opportunities, the day was sunny and warm again.

As Yesterday, numbers of birds were low, but plenty of species were found, not the one new species I need to equal the may species record though! I added a couple more birds to the years ''successfully bred'' list early in the walk, the first was a PIED WAGTAIL, one very young looking bird was seen on a roof of a house along Ashes Lane, the other was CARRION CROW, at least two recently fledged birds were out on the sheep pasture at Migrant Alley, but little else was out there apart from a dozen LINNETS, 6 GREYLAG GEESE, and a few ROOKS, JACKDAWS and WOODPIGEONS.

The LESSER WHITETHROAT sang from the Greenhouse Grounds again today, plus the other summer birds of BLACKCAP, CHIFFCHAFF and COMMON WHITETHROAT were also seen there, also, a KESTREL was sitting on the edge of the nest box, it was too distant to see if it was a young bird or an adult though, i'll have to get round to investigate. A LITTLE OWL sat along the guttering of one of the greenhouses, and was mobbed in turn by SONGTHRUSH and BLACKBIRDS.

As I walked the Pub Field, which now has Maize sprouting, I spotted a large brown blob in the grass verge ahead of me, this blob turned out to be a Roe Deer, I took a distant shot, but the shutter noise started up a bloody noisy dog from an adjacent garden and the Deer legged it before I could get any closer - bleedin' dogs!

Roe Deer

I crossed into the Ashes Lane Field, where the SKYLARKS sang over the weedier of the fields, and a few SWALLOWS flew low over the sheep pasture field. I noted 3 LESSER BLACK BACKED GULLS and a HERRING GULL flyover as I walked on.

A look through the Wet Woods was mainly quiet, but a NUTHATCH was seen foraging for food to take back to its nestlings, and the GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER alarm called at a JAY when it strayed too close to its nest, I was also fortunate enough to hear the high pitch contact calls of young TREECREEPERS, which I tracked down to a large Oak and watched the parents feeding at least 3 youngsters, that's the 19th species to have successfully bred young on my patch so far this year.

The lakes ans Scrubby woods didn't provide any surprises, the COOTS fed their two youngsters, the MUTE SWANS are still incubating, and a few MALLARDS, MOORHENS and two CANADA GEESE were all that was on the water. In the Scrubby Woods, GOLDCREST, Chiffchaff and Blackcaps did most of the singing, COAL TITS were seen carrying food, and may have fledged some young but I couldn't see any, BULLFINCH called and a couple of MISTLETHRUSH squawked at something annoying them, but nothing much was going on here today.

I returned to my seat at Migrant Alley for a sky watch, but only added SWIFT and BUZZARD to my day list, which ended on a creditable 48 species, so I went over to the wet ditch at the far end of one of the sheep fields to see if any Dragons or damsels were about, and there were  :-) I found 4 Beautiful Demoiselles, at least 6 Common Blue Damsels, my first this year, and also my first Blue Tailed damsel for my patch this year. A few Large Red Damsels were also on the wing, as was a female Broad Bodied Chaser.

Common Blue Damselfly

Female Broad Bodied Chaser

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