The Voice of the Turtle

I glanced out of the window as I was sitting down with my dinner and thought "that's and odd looking collared dove". A second look picked out the striped patches on the neck and the colour of the wings and I realised that it was a turtle dove. I then realised that I had heard it calling earlier but it hadn't registered at the time. Its the first time that I have seen or heard a turtle in this area and have never seen one so close.

The robins have a brood, I saw one taking food away. A blackbird was feeding its chick and the young blue tits are now feeding themselves. Starling numbers have dropped slightly, groups are mostly in single figures and haven't seen anything like the 20 plus groups cleaning the feeders out in hours a few days ago. A one litre fat bar has lasted all day and there should be some tomorrow as well.

Other birds in the garden today have been wood pigeon, house sparrow, chaffinch and goldfinch. Out and about there were three kites over fields just north of Burnham Beeches. One came down to land close to the hedge but as always there were cars on my tail and I couldn't stop. They were still around when I returned but at a little distance from the road.

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Kites Spreading East

I haven't been posting much due personal matters but still have my eyes open. One thing that has struck me is the eastward spread of birds of prey. I have seen buzzards over Havering-atte-Bower but the big suprise in the past month as been a red kite over the M25 near Stapleford Abbotts in Essex. The skys still look empty by Chiltern standards though. A nice little spot last week was a goldcrest during a visit to Kew Gardens. I have downloaded the Merlin app which supposedly identifies birdsong. I have had little opportunity to try it out but a quck test in the garden showd that it correctly told me that I could hear jackdaws and a robin. I look forward to using it on the coast to see if it can distinguish the various waders for me.

More Starlings

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...

Not as Quiet as I Thought

The garden has seemed very quiet with hardly any birds seen but I hadn't been explicitly looking. I have just started putting a little food out in the front and in 24 hours have seen Robin, Great and Blue Tits and Magpies landing in my tiny front garden. Yesterday I heard a song that was unusual to me which the Merlin app identified as a Blackcap. Unfortunately for me the bird was ensconsed in the middle of my Forsythia which is still in full leaf and I couldn't get a sighting. This afternoon I saw Robins in the garden and corvids overhead. I set Merlin running while I swept fallen leaves from the front path. The app identified Robin, Rook, Wren, Jackdaw, Greenfinch and Blackbird. I also heard Parakeets but not while the app was running.

Chiltern Birder

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