Chiltern Birder

 With adverts for the Great British Birdwatch on television I decided to do a timed count of species in my back garden today. Thirty minutes gave a total of 8 species. I was watching from an upstairs window so I didn't use binoculars as I would have a direct line of sight into other bedrooms and might give cause for complaint. This did mean that I didn't have a good view of the base of the bushes at the bottom of the garden. Species seen were blue tit, great tit, chaffinch, greenfinch, goldfinch, bullfinch, blackbird and robin. I was surprised at the lack of coal tits as they are quite regular visitors. Dunnocks seem a lot less common although I did see one yesterday while the wrens often stay under cover. The resident wood pigeons seem to have moved on. We did have a small flock of long tailed tits pay a visit over the weekend and starlings are regulars on the feeder in the front garden.

In most years I only see starlings in the garden in spring and early summer when they turn out mob handed and get through half a kilo of fat in a day. In the past week, however, I have had a part of three on the fat feeders in both the front and back gardens. Another usual visit today was by a pair of greenfinches who briefly came to the sunflower seed feeder. The feeders are all very busy now with seed being topped up daily. The dried mealworms in the ground feeder are proving popular with the blackbird and robin but the fat pellets only seem to be of interest to the magpies and wood pigeons. Despite the claims by the feed merchant the raisins are generally ignored by the birds but the badger cleans them up overnight. A group of long tailed tits made a suprise visit at dusk today. Judging by their behaviour I suspect that they were taling a last feed of the night before roosting in my neighbours leylandii. This seems rather more attractive to birds now that old man's beard has ...

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...

I had already seen tweets from people who had seen swallows and heard cuckoos but it was only this morning that I saw a swallow. It was skimming over pasture in Ley Hill where the farmer had been keeping a herd of charolais cattle. Cuckoos, sadly, are still silent here despite the lack of traffic noise. I couple of nights ago I tawney owl in a neighbour's tree was making an absolutely defening racket which I could hear indoors. I went outside and could hear his mate in the same, or an adjacent, tree and another male some distance away responding to the call. I was pleased, yesterday, to see a pair of bullfinches on the feeder, the first since the storms in early march. Chaffinches and goldfinches are also feeding regularly as well as the usual blue and great tits. There haven't been any badgers at their feeding station recently and after finding evidence of rats visiting I have stopped putting food out for the moment.

There seem to be a few pairs of finches nesting within range of my feeders. We seem to have at least one pair of chaffinches and two of goldfinches visiting regularly at the moment. No doubt the starlings will turn up later in the season. At the moment I only have a couple of fat bars in the house and am not sure if I should be ordering more under the present circumstances. In the woods the bluebells have come out in the last day or two. Great spotted woodpeckers are drumming and I have heard the occasional "yaffle" of a green woodpecker as well. With so little traffic noise birdsong is far clearer and the fact that we are lucky enough to have a good population of skylarks is obvious.

I came in just before noon and looked out of the back window to see a totally undistinguished brownish grey bird, about the size of a great tit, at the bottom of the garden. Without any outstanding markings I couldn't identify it so fetched the binoculars, just in time for it to fly into a bush. With some patient waiting it reappeared and returned to the tree, I found the spot with the glasses just in time for it to fly away. Whatever it was it didn't show any interest in the feeders. In Chesham this morning after heavy rain, and reports of flooding elsewhere in the country, water was actually flowing under the Town Bridge. How much of the rain will actually enter the water table is another matter, on recent performance I don't hold out much hope for the flow outlasting a few dry days. Contrary to expectations we are still not seeing more than one or two goldfinches in the garden those that come are still regulars along with the coal tit and nuthatch. The blue and great...

Suddenly this afternoon three starlings paid a visit to the feeder. The birds were all in adult plumage and only stayed on the feeder for a few minutes. I don't think that they took any more than the blackbird who made a couple of visits obviously filling his beak to take back to a chick. On the seed feeder a pair of chaffinches has been turning up as well as the regular couple of goldfinches.The highlight recently as been a blue tit feeding a solitary youngster who has been coveniently posing on the fence right by the living room window.

I had a day in South Wales this week. Parking in the Blaenavon World Heritage Site at the Keepers Pond. I took the steep path down into the head of Cwm Llanwenarth to pick up the route of Hill's Tramroad. This is quite an impressive piece of engineering for 1820 cut into the side of the valley after tunnelling from Blaenavon. In the photo you can see the tramroad cut into the hillside. In places the stone sleepers are still clearly visible despite being disused since 1860. At the site of Garnddyrys Forge there were abundant meadow pipits and the occasional robin. I had heard other small birds in gorse bushes which were careful to stay invisible. Garnddyrys is noted for the formations of iron slag. The most spectacularly architectural were vandalised some years ago but some still remain. Following the tramroad one thing that startled me was a red kite, the first that I have seen in this part of Wales although I have since been informed that they have reached as far as Usk. ...

The bullfinches haven't returned but we are regularly seeing goldfinches on all four ports of the seed feeder. I am having to top up the sunflower seeds every few days now. We are also seeing chaffinches and all the usual tits, blue, great, long tailed and coal. There was also a starling on the fat ball holder today but these aren't going down at anything like the speed of the seeds. I won't fill the other fat feeders for a little while yet. At ground level we have the usual selection, dunnock, robin, blackbird and wood pigeon but the pigeons don't seem to be frequent visitors as the ground feeder isn't being cleared yet. It took several days for a spillage of sunflower seeds to be cleared, I don't know if it was birds, field mice or badgers that were responsible. I was out and about in east London last weekend. Parakeets were very obvious in Hackney, I heard them from inside the car in Victoria Park Road (yes they are that loud) and saw them over Broadway M...

Yesterday we had a good range of tits on the feeders with blues, greats and at least one coal. What was striking was the total lack of finches of any sort. This was rectified today with two cock bullfinches and a chaffinch in the garden at the same time. Food that had been untouched on the ground feeder vanished overnight so I will try and remember to set a camera trap tonight.

With the forsythia and celandines in bloom spring is definitely on the way. There are some clear changes in usage of the garden by the birds. The finches are no longer flocking, while we are still seeing goldfinches and chaffinches these are now singletons or pairs rather than groups. The bullfinches seem to have vanished and the long tailed tits are less frequent visitors. Blue and great tits, dunnock, robins, wood pigeons and blackbirds are all still present in abundance while great spotted woodpeckers are occasional visitors although they are disturbed by the slightest movement inside the house.

You don't really think about "pregnancy" in egg laying animals but for the last few days it has been striking that there are some very plump hen birds around. I first noticed a greenfinch but there has been a particularly gravid looking chaffinch that has been sitting underneath the feeders eating bits that fall rather than trying to perch. The greenfinch was the first that I have seen for quite a while but apart from the regulars the only other bird of note has been the great spotted woodpecker who has perched in the garden on a couple of occasions but hasn't come to the feeders. Badgers have been visiting fairly regularly. On one night I put out a choice of raisins and fat pellets and found that the badger only took the fruit while a field mouse came out to take the fat. I have seen badgers take tallow based fat products and the pellets were suet based so I tried two fat balls, one of suet and one of tallow. Naturally the badgers stayed away that night! I have...

The starlings followed the same pattern as the goldfinches. Yesterday there was a solitary bird, today a flock cleaning out the fat feeder. Yesterday the feeders had been covered with long tailed tits while blues and greys have been regulars alongside the goldfinches. When I restarted feeding less than a week ago I was lucky to see the occasional robin or dunnock in the garden and I thought that I might be putting the food out far too early but I have been proved wrong. A couple of the visitors may have been one offs but the full list is: blue tit, great tit, long tailed tit, coal tit, greenfinch, chaffinch, bullfinch, goldfinch, starling, wood pigeon, dunnock, robin, wren. That pretty well accounts for all the usual regular visitors I will have to keep watch for anything more exotic.

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.

Not a rarity but a newcomer to my garden today was a pied wagtail. It landed on the feeder before dropping down to the lawn. On the other hand a robin seems to have taken to sunflower seeds and, with some difficulty, flutters onto a feeder perch to grab one or two seeds before flying off. This is despite there being spillage available on the ground which attracts the chaffinches. I have bought a longer feeder pole which, so far, seems to have defeated the squirrels. An advantage of the height is that I can see the feeders while seated in my armchair rather than standing at the window, with the risk of disturbing the birds. The garden is busy for much of the day now with goldfinches and blue and great tits flocking to the feeders together with random visits by long tailed tits although starling numbers are way down. At ground level in the past few days we have had bullfinch, chaffinch, dunnock, blackbird  and robin. Our resident wren has either moved on or failed to survive the ...

Despite the frost and fog I noticed that far more birds seemed to be singing. In addition a woodpecker was drumming this afternoon. On the other hand, walking into Chesham this morning the winter visitors were still around with a redwing foraging by Codmore Playing Field. In the garden the goldfinches put in a reappearance but only briefly. The main visitors were a mix of blue and great tits who descended on the shrubs as a flock and paid individual visits to the feeder. We also had a chaffinch which preferred feeding on the ground. Moving the seed feeder seems to have also reduced the number of birds visiting the fat feeders.

I decided to see how many different species come to the garden on a typical winter day. The total came to eleven: blackbird blue tit bullfinch chaffinch dunnock goldfinch great tit long tailed tit robin starling wood pigeon The squirrel managed to crack the baffle with an impressive leap from a bush at the side of the garden. I trimmed back the branches, which I had been meaning to do in better weather anyway, and his follow up attempt resulted in an equally impressive tumble as the baffole tipped him off as intended. I don't know if the next act was chance or design but I caught him making several leaps at the baffle from ground level gradually pulling it down a little. The next leap from the bush meant that he just managed to reach the the central pole. I have how tightened the fastenings and we will have to see if that is sufficient. The bushes will also get some additional trimming in better weather. ...

I have finally invested in a squirrel baffle as they were cleaning out the seed feeder in no time at all. The feeders were placed for best viewing from the living room window but of course that was an easy jump from the fence. The first alternative position wasn't much better but the third location finally worked although I might now keep the bins by the armchair rather than reply of naked eye viewing. Once they had discovered that they couldn't run straight up the pole a squirrel proceeded to study the feeder from every angle, including a branch at the edge of the garden before deciding that there was no way up. Mostly the squirrels are now taking the buts that the birds drop they do try the occasional leap. The baffle is designed to tilt and they just slide off again. From the way, at different times, it is tilted at different angles they have made a number of attempts although I have only observed one. What the baffle has shown up is the sheer volume of food that the finch...

Activity has picked up a lot over the Christmas period. Suddenly the blue tits are out in force. A group will perch on a bush and one after the other will make the short dash to the feeder, grab a sunflower seed and return to the bush. The goldfinches and starlings dominate the feeders but we have also had brief visits from greenfinch, chaffinch, great tits and long tailed tits. Robins, blackbirds and dunnocks are regulars on the lawn and flowerbeds although the wrens haven't been seen for a little while.