Chiltern Birder

I was walking through Latimer today and heard what sounded to me like a ring necked parakeet calling in Parkfield and another among confiers further up the road. This is certainly the closest that I have encountered them to Chesham although I have seen and heard them in Rickmansworth and once in Chemies. I seem to have seen so many roe deer recently that walking through the woods to Latimer without seeing any seemed quite unusual. What I did realise today is that I have seen more roe deer than muntjac durling lockdown, when driving at night in normal times it is the other way round. Out and about the bluebell season is long gone but plenty of opportunity to appreciate the delicate flowers of the grasses, at least until they are cut for silage, plus the occasional field poppy. The garden has gone very quiet, the blue tits seem to have followed the starlings and I can go several days without topping up the feeders.

The starlings are no longer turning up mob handed although we are still seeing singleton juveniles in the garden. Naturally I had just stocked up with fat bars on the assumption that we would be seeing half a litre or more consumed every day. The new bars are from Gardman which don't crumble when pecked in the way that the ones from the previous supplier did. This morning we had a great spotted woodpecker on the feeder tapping away at the side of the bar as if he was drumming. He really didn't seem to take much. Great and blue tits are the most frequent visitors and we have been privilaged to see blue tit chicks being fed. In the front garden a magpie has discovered the fat blocks and has a novel system for feeding. He will perch on the branch that the feeder hangs from and stab with his beak sending a piece of fat to the ground. The then drops down to eat the morsel then flies back to the branch to repeat the process. Out and about I have been walking early on the mornings o