The Pheasant Returns

He was back again today, about mid morning. Scraping around the feeders to uncover scraps made a bit of a mess of the lawn. After taking a drink he wandered down the garden and settled down in a sheltered corner by the lilace for a couple of hours. I looked at one point and the cat was sitting by the window, the pair of them totally ignoring each other. When I opened the window to let the cat in he crouched down but made no other attempt to move.

It finally rained today, a nice change from the cold dry north easterlies that we have been having. Gentle light rain which soaked the ground nicely but did very little to refill the water butt. Not much else in the way of birds in the garden this morning, the wood pigeon cleaned up most of the ground feeding tray again and the squirrel is still cleaning how the sunflower hearts, also ignored by the cat. Actually I have never seen her take a bird but she is a keen mouser but not keen enough to save all the bulbs that I had in the lean-to.

I noticed that the goldfinches always use the highest available ports on the nyjer seed feeder. Trouble is now that the bottom ports have clogged. When it next needs refilling I will have to take it apart and clean it.

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Returning to the Garden

High summer and early autumn is always a quiet time for birds in my garden. I no longer feed after my summer holiday as I have ended up throwing away far to much mouldy fat or seed. Normally I would wait until November before putting the feeders back out but a party of long tailed tits appeared in the front garden today so I think that it might be worth while trying a single fat bar for the moment. For the past couple of weeks I have seen a lot of roadside signs saying "beware of deer" in places where I wouldn't normally see them. Last weekend I decided that they might be justified when I encountered a herd of roe deer in the road between Ley Hill and Latimer. While muntjac are seen often enough the roes tend to be shy and this was only the third time that I have had a good look at some in all the years that I have lived here.

More Starlings

At least one brood of starlings have been regular visitors to the feeder and today the fledglings got the hang of taking the food for themselves. Other broods must be less developed as adults were still taking away quantities of fat. The tits aren't so common at the moment, I don't know if this is because they have dispersed, if wild food is available or if pressure from the starlings has driven them off. Single blue tits are dropping in fairly regularly and a coal tit took fat away as well. The woodpecker seems to have become a regular visitor and still has a brood to feed. He definitely comes before the starlings in the pecking order and keeps them off the feeder until he has finished. The new feeder with perching rings is popular with the chaffinches and the goldfinches, the latter suddenly seem to prefer the high energy mix to the nyjer seed. With all this demand for feeding young ones the fat is going down very rapidly and I am putting larger quantities out on the ground t...

A Little More Normal

After a couple of days of frost the garden looks more like a typical winter's day with birds visiting throughout the day. Blue tits are the main visitor plus one or two marsh (or possibly willow) tits and the occasional great tit. A flock of long tailed tits paid a fairly brief visit. Robins in the back garden have paired, seemingly a little later than the ones in the front. Due to ill health the ivy on my back fence hasn't been trimmed and has developed a good crop of berries. The only bird that I have seen showing interest has been a wood pigeon which spent some time yesterday feasting on them. In the front I put out a fat block yesterday afternoon which, so far, has attracted a grey squirrel. The pair of robins and the occasional blackbird are active on the hanging table.

Chiltern Birder

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