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More Starlings

The feeder seemed to go mad yesterday with a dozen starling chicks trying to get at the fat. At one point they were even standing on top of each other. Apart from that the coal tits obviously have a brood as I keep seeing the adults taking beakfuls of food away. Also in the garden I saw a small copper butterfly.

Driving home in the late evening on Tuesday I saw something large for a stoat but small for a ferret running away from me on the road from Latimer to Ley Hill. I didn't get a frontal view but judging by the colour I would guess a juvenile polecat. Across the fields it would have been less than half a mile from the other individual that I have seen here.

Walking across the fields today there were three or four skylarks visible but only one singing.

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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...