Chiltern Birder

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 ...

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.

Day 1 of feeding we had a solitary goldfinch turn up. On day 2 we had a flock, the word seems to be getting around that a new season of bird feeding has started. We also had a pair of greenfinches which was a suprise as they have been so scarce in the garden for the last few years. The finches just bite a piece of each sunflower seed that they take so a lot ends up on the ground to fatten up the wood pigeons.

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.

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.

It has been quite a few years since I have had greenfinches in the garden but today a trio suddenly appeared on the feeder taking sunflower hearts. Despite having four ports on the feeder the pair feeding would not allow the other anywhere near although as they squabbled they did change places from time to time. Eventually they all suddenly flew off to be replaced by a sollitary goldfinch. When I moved here over 20 years ago I never imagined that greenfinches would be unusual and goldfinches an everyday occurrence. At the front of the house a great spotted woodpecker was on the feeder as I came down to breakfast but flew off as soon as I moved near the window. The great tit who promptly came down wasn't so concerned.

A big suprise today was the return of greenfinches to the garden, well one anyway. After being absent all year it was nice to see one back on the feeder to provide some variety from the goldfinches and chaffinches. After commenting in my last post about the lack of red kites recently I saw two circling over the village today. Apart from that the sightings have been pretty routine. I am still getting the occasional house sparrow on the feeders and at least one juvenile robin is around. Yesterday I saw him flying at speed straight for the living room window, I was braced for a sickening thud when at the last munute he dropped onto the window sill, gave be a beady eyed look, then flew back the way he came.

The wood pigeons seem to be a permanent fixture now. Yesterday morning the pair of them were on the garden fence indulging in their courtship display. I thought that they were supposed to wait until St Valentine's Day. Another effect of global warming? A party of long tailed tits as been in residence for the last couple of days and has been delighting us with frequent visits to the fat feeders. Apart from that it has been a case of the usual suspects with the exception of greenfinches which seem to have abandoned us entirely and brief visits by a song thrush and a pair of house sparrows.