Chiltern Birder

The most striking thing about this year so far is the crash in starling numbers in the garden. The regular May invasion happened but numbers were in single figures and, curiously, they seemed reluctant to use the starlign feeder, preferring fat pellets and dried mealworms from the ground feeder. I would normally shift several kilos of fat in this period, this time a single 500gm fat bar sufficed and tht saw more action from pigeons and blue tits than from starlings. After the worries about the dry weather earlier in the year our blue tits seem to be breeding well with plenty of juveniles in the garden and adults carrying food away. We have also had a pair of goldfinches in regular attendance throughout the spring. Today a cock bullfinch appeared in the back garden for the first time since the winter. At ground level the badgers no longer seem to be visiting on a nightly basis. In the front garden wrens have nested in the bat box. It seems almost impossible to open the front door with...

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...

In recent weeks the garden has been almost devoid of birds. The resident pair of wood pigeons have been munching their way through the fat bars on the starling feeder while a magpie makes occasional attacks on the fat balls on a hanging feeder. Hardly anything has been taking sunflower seeds, so much so that I had to clean out the existing seeds as they had become caked at the bottom. Yesterday, however, a pair of bullfinches appeared and spent some time there. It was striking how faded the cock bird had become, nothing like the vivid brick red of the spring. In the front garden the rowan tree is laden with berries, the branches so heave that I bumped my head on one bunch. It was very noticeable that it had only recently stopped raining! I am sure that the tree will be stripped bare soon enough but if previous years are anything to go by I am unlikely to to see a single bird feeding on it.

With sunflower hearts and a fat ball feeder in the back garden and a fat bar in the front the tits have been turning up in numbers. Mainly blues but we have also had the occasional great and a single coal tit. At lunchtime today I looked out to see the fat ball feeder absolutely covered with long tailed tits. After a while the flock moved on up the lane taking a toll from the feeder in the front garden on their way. So far we have had no finches but the resident robins are in evidence as well as the occasional wood pigeon and blackbird.

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...

It looks as if the starlings don't like my brand of fat bar. After having at least 17 going through half a bar in one session it has only gone down by about another quarter. If the starlings had stayed in those numbers I would have expected to have replaced it inside 48 hours. Judging by the number of juveniles in the garden both blue and great tits have produced good broods. Now that the sunflower seeds have run out I am seeing no more finches but still have robins, blackbirds and wood pigeons.

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.

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.

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. ...

The winter has been so mild that the fields near the house which were ploughed at the end of summer are now totally green. Out walking between Christmas and New Year skylarks were singing and there were a host of small brown birds on the fields that kept just too far away to identify. In the garden things are getting a little more interesting with goldfinches and long tailed tits regularly visiting the feeders. Some other birds were managing some interesting contortions including a robin taking sunflower seeds and a blackbird on the fat feeder. On the ground the wood pigeons are taking most of the dried meal worms which at least keeps them off the fat feeders (I did read somewhere that they were vegetarian!). This morning a magpie tried to chase one off the ground feeder but when the pigeon stood its ground and the magpie gave up. Yesterday we had a green woodpecker on the back lawn. This is the first time that I have seen one come into the very enclosed back garden although I do o...

Garden feeding has settled down to a pretty standard pattern. The fat block on a tree in the front garden is being taken by blue and great tits. In the back starlings and blues and greats are taking fat and the tits are also taking sunflower seeds. I have been putting dried mealworms on the ground tray and have only seen wood pigeons take these so far. We had a visit from a party of long tailed tits on one day, I couldn't count accurately as they were in and out of the bushes but I would say between seven and a dozen. I had a glimpse of a marsh or willow tit, far too brief to be sure of any markings. One slight oddity was a dunnock perched on the feeder taking sunflower hearts, normally these are very reluctant to come to the feeders. I realised today that I hadn'twalked in the surrounding countryside for nearly two months, all my exercise being confined to walking into Chesham. Ignoring a reproachful bowl of washing up I went out for an hour this morning. It was fascinating ...

I have commented previously on how buzzards are becoming more common. It hasn't been numbers recently but just unexpected sightings. Last week I was on the Cotswolds and saw two, one between Enstone and Chipping Norton over the A44 and one east of Northleach over the A40. Kites didn't dissapoint me either as I saw one low over the field behind the wonderfully named Ramping Cat House just outside Burford. The big suprise was this week when I saw another buzzard over the M11 at Debden which is only the third that I have definitely seen in Essex. At home the goldfinches seem to have established themselves as residents and chaffinches have just started visiting again while starlings are also reappearing although only in ones and twos at the moment. On the other hand the long tailed tits seem to have moved on although I did see a small party along White Hill when walking in to Chesham this morning. The nature notes in The Times today referred to wood pigeons as being "almos...

Perhaps I should spend more time just looking out of the window. This morning I had two goldfinces taking sunflower seeds. When I fetched the camera one flew off and the other resolutely stayed on the other side of the feeder. These are the first that I have seen for a month. This afternoon I walked past the window just in time to see a nuthatch fly off. This was the first that I have seen in the garden since last May. Apart from that it has all been pretty routine. The long tailed tits are still around, the pigeons are still fattening themselves from the ground feeder and the starlings are regular visitors.

One of the stranger sights on the fat feeder is the pigeons who have really taken to the fat bars. At one point there was a wood pigeon on the feeder being pecked at by a starling and totally ignoring him despite some breast feathers being pulled out. That indivudual was identfiable for several days by the feathers. The juvenile starlings are appearing on the feeders now making a lot of noise and sometimes sitting on the fat bar itself and demanding to be fed.

Looking back over previous posts this seems to be the normal time to hear a cuckoo in the hills around here. Walking across the field between Broomstick Lane and Cowcroft Wood I could hear one in the direction of Tylers Hill Road. In the woods the bluebells were making a magnificent show but birds could only be heard rather than seen. In the garden we seem to be getting starlings, blue, great and coal tits, blackbirds, robins and dunnocks. Magpies have started coming into the garden and a pair of wood pigeons seem to be resident rather than just visiting.

Between Sunday and Thursday the bluebells have come out. Walking in Cowcroft Wood at the weekend the bluebells were all still green but driving back from Cheinies yesterday there were lovely displays in the woods and verges. I saw several herons along the Chess but no egrets. At home the balance of species at the feeders has changed. A magpie now comes and uses the fat feeder every day while starling numbers are increasing. The blackcap hasn't returned from some time and the long tailed tits seem to have moved on as well. We are still seeing blue and great tits and a coal tit made several visits today. A wood pigeon using the starling feeder was quite amusing while various small brown birds flitting rapidly in and out of shrubs may have been house sparrows.

I have had to be away from home quite a lot on the past few weeks which means that I have not been feeding as often as I would like through the two bouts of heavy snow. There have been a couple of firsts in the garden though. At the back the ground tray has been standing in a gap shovelled out of the snow. One one occasion a wood pigeon was feeding from it totally ignoring a stock dove which was pecking at its head. On another occasion I came home to see a jay fly away from the feeder in the front garden. Jays are common enough in the woods around here but that was the first that I have ever seen come in to the garden. I have never positively identified a stock dove in the area before, flocks feeding in fields are normally passed in the car and I never get a clear view.