Chiltern Birder

The birds seem to be discovering the feeders in my back garden. We had several visits from a coal tit this morning which is the first that I have seen for a while. Another garden first for this autumn was a blackbird which foraged in the flower beds before sampling the dried mealworms in one of th ground feeders. It has taken experimentation over a couple of years to find the optimum placing for ground feeders where they can be seen from the windows while being attractive to the birds. The magpies and the wood pigeons are far more likely to feed away from cover so I put a second feeder in the centre of the lawn to reduce competition with the smaller birds.

Walking in the Crabtree Wood communuty woodland in Ley Hill today it was a pleasure to come across a spindle tree. I did come across a specimen in a hedgerow locally a few years ago but when I looked for it recently there was no trace so it is nice to have a replacement. The are also seems to be attracting long tailed tits which have yet to come to my garden this autumn. Staying in the area the golf course is a good place to see thrushes, I have seen them on the fairways whenever I have crossed that part of the common. At home the mild, damp weather meant the the sunflower seed feeder was starting to clog. I emptied it into the ground feeder tray, and cleaned and disinfected it. I should have set a camera trap as the pile of seeds was cleared overnight. At the moment we are getting regular visits from blue and great tits taking seeds but they don't seem very interested in the fat feeder. A couple of individuals went to it when I was cleaning the seed feeder but they return

The fat pellets put out for the robins in the ground feeder trays seem to be attracting magpies. The pellets can vanish within 15 or 20 minutes of being put out and, as often as not, I don't even seev the culprits. Luckily the robins seem quite content with the dried mealworms which the magpies definitely regard as second best. The magapies are suprisingly nervy birds for their and will fly off at the slightest movement within the house, even just a twitch of an upstairs curtain. This time of year is usually very quiet when it comes to garden birds but we do have regular visits from blue and great tits that require keeping the sunflower seed feeder about half full althouhg they have mostly ignored the fat ball that I hung on the other feeder. Chaffinches and goldfinches also turn up occasionally but only singletons. A wren has put in an occasional appearance but had no interest in the ground feeders. Uneaten food usually vanishes before the next morning ass we often get a badger