Chiltern Birder

Its time for a few "aaahhh" moments at the feeders. As well as the starlings being out in force both blue tits and coal tits brought their chicks into the garden to feed. The blue tits came out into the open and occasionally pecked at things around them but made no move to feed themselves. Not even the one who took refuge in the hanging cage containing one of the fat bars. The blackbirds must have chicks nearby as both male and female were in and out of the garden either taking worms or gathering what they could from the ground tray. A solitary wood pigeon made some entertaining efforts to take seed from the feeders but after the ground tray was topped up returned to that. At one point he was pecking quite viciously at the starlings and keeping them off. Both chaffinches and goldfinces were also present for most of the day. In late afternoon a female pied woodpecker put in an appearance and flew off with a beak full of fat. Never having seen one locally until this month this

At least one brood of starlings have been regular visitors to the feeder and today the fledglings got the hang of taking the food for themselves. Other broods must be less developed as adults were still taking away quantities of fat. The tits aren't so common at the moment, I don't know if this is because they have dispersed, if wild food is available or if pressure from the starlings has driven them off. Single blue tits are dropping in fairly regularly and a coal tit took fat away as well. The woodpecker seems to have become a regular visitor and still has a brood to feed. He definitely comes before the starlings in the pecking order and keeps them off the feeder until he has finished. The new feeder with perching rings is popular with the chaffinches and the goldfinches, the latter suddenly seem to prefer the high energy mix to the nyjer seed. With all this demand for feeding young ones the fat is going down very rapidly and I am putting larger quantities out on the ground t

I put a block of fat out on the ground tray this morning and within two minutes there was a greater spotted woodpecker gathering a beak full. It then promptly flew off, presumably taking the food to a nearby brood. Varous writers have remarked on the early breeding of robins this year and, as mentioned in previous posts, I have already seen a juvenile in the garden. The adults are carrying off more fat so it looks as if they are raising a second brood. The starlings are also still carrying food away although I will expect to see juveniles within the next fortnight. There have been a few swallows around Ley Hill but for swifts the place at the moment seems to be Ferry Lane in Walthamstow as there are huge numbers over the reservoir there.

The driver's seat of a car is not the optimum position for bird watching. A lot of birds do cross the field of vision but there are only a few that are distinctive enough to identify at speed. The red kite is one of these and today I had to travel down to Goring on the Thames between Reading and Oxford. This involved following the edge of the Chiltern escarpment at around 8am this morning. Most journeys that I make in that area are going towards Oxford and I typically see between 1 and 3 kites. Today I saw 12 with groups of 3 at Watlington and 4 at Benson. It was striking how they seemed to be concentrating over the larger villages. Coming back the concentration over Watlington was even higher, they were mostly at chimney pot height and I couldn't make an acurate count but there were at least half a dozen. As they crossed my line of site at close range in a traffic queue, I was able, for a change, to appreciate the full beauty of their plumage but it was more than a little dist