Chiltern Birder

The edge of the storm has simply blown the birds away from the back garden. The wagtail landed by developed a strange sideways drift as he tried to run across the lawn. The squirrel baffle acted as a sail in the high wind and I decided to take the feeder down rather than risk damage if it blew down.

Our resident bullfinch seems to have found a mate, yesterday I saw both a cock and a hen bird in the garden. That is the first hen bullfinch this season. I did notice that she seemed rather more adept at using the perches on the feeder than her partner. The feeder isn't 100% squirrel proof, I have twice found one actually on the feeder but have not seen how they reach it. While not perfect it is a great improvement. Mostly the squirrels now seem content with eathing the broken portions of sunflower seed that lay on the ground. With the feeder now on the lawn the volume that gets dropped is clearly visible. Among the other birds we have had occasional visits from a greenfinch as well as the usual goldfinch, chaffinch, blue and great tits, robin, dunnock and blackbird. The first signs of spring are coming through, at Boxmoor, thanks to temporary traffic lights, I had a chance to appreciate a bank covered in celandine. With the extra couple of hundred feet of altitude the plants

When I first started this blog eleven years ago greenfinches were the predominent finch visiting the garden. These days they are most unusual so I was please to see one bullying the goldfinches on the feeder today. It has been a very active morning in the garden a brief visit from a coal tit as well as the usual blues and greys. Among the finches our solitary cock bullfinch paid us a visit as well as chaffinches of both genders. Down at ground level the pied wagtail is still around as well as the usual selection of wood pigeon, robin and dunnock. Since writing the above at lunchtime we have also had a brief visit by a nuthatch.

The new squirrel baffle has revealed just how much food the goldfinches waste. Yesterday I cleaned a layer of splilled sunflower seed fragments from the baffle and today I had to repeat the process much to the enjoyment of the wood pigeons. This may also have been instrumental in a return visit from the pied wagtail. On the other hand the bullfinch keeps coming back and takes what is on the baffle itself. While both seed and fat feeders are well used in the back garden the feeder at the front of the house is seeing very little use. In previous years this has been popular with great spotted woodpeckers but at the moment it just seems to be the robin. If it hadn't been so cold I think that the fat bar would be mouldy by now.