Thursday 12 March 2015

Another morning with some pleasant spells of hazy sunshine, but it looks to be the last!

A trip over to the lakes first thing found nothing on the water of any real note, just a pair of GREYLAGS and a lone CANADA GOOSE were visiting the resident MUTE SWAN and COOT pairs, although a little after arriving, a pair of MANDARIN DUCKS circled the main lake before flying off again.

Walking through the Scrubby Woods I could hear the BULLFINCH calling and COAL TIT, GOLDCREST, BLACKBIRD, MISTLETHRUSH, SONGTHRUSH, WREN, DUNNOCK and ROBIN all singing, then, as not entirely unexpected, the first CHIFFCHAFF (70,60) of the year chimed in with its song, a real pleasure to hear, their presence here at Pittswood is 2 days earlier than the 14 year median average first date and 4 days later than the earliest arrival date. Three REDWINGS dropped into a large Oak whilst I listened on.

I spent a bit of time in the Wet Woods trying to get a TREECREEPER image, but these tricky little birds keep eluding my efforts, whilst there I heard NUTHATCH calling and GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKERS drumming.

SKYLARK, YELLOWHAMMER, MEADOW PIPIT and PIED WAGTAIL flew over the Ashes Lane Fields as I made my way to Migrant Alley, where 80 + BLACK HEADED GULLS were in with the sheep, 3 COMMON GULLS were also feeding there, but they all soon moved on as more disturbance arrived, this time from the preparations of the lambing weekend that's held here every year, the paddocks are turned into a tourist attraction and car parks  ;-(  I wont get much in the way of birds here now until after the weekend.

I did some sky watching though, seeing 5 BUZZARDS up together was a nice sight, plus both the KESTREL Pair were up hunting behind me at the Greenhouses.

Images today are from my garden feeders, taken over the past few days............

CHAFFINCH


STARLING

Wren

GOLDFINCH


4 comments:

Stephen Mills said...

Great to see you had the first Chiffchaff of the spring.Well done mate!

Warren Baker said...

Cheers Steve ;-)

Pete Woodruff said...

Excellent, your first Chiffchaff Warren. Still waiting for mine, but no surprise there, that's the difference between north and south.

Warren Baker said...

Pete,
They're comin' mate :-)