Chiltern Birder

This is the time of year when the starling chicks are brought to the feeder. It seems to take them quite a while to get the idea that they are actually next to their food as they call and gape demanding that their parents feed them. Occasionally a really enterprising one will take a peck at the fat. There will be a demand for the fat bars all summer but I will have to stop when the weather warms up as the bars may then start to melt. I was lucky this morning to see a coal tit on the feeder. Like all the tits it didn't linger and it is the first one that I have seen for several months. Because the visits to the garden are so brief it may have been around all winter without being noticed but either way it is nice to see it back. A trip to Oxfordshire yesterday produced the usual crop of red kites, none in the Chesham or Missenden areas this time but one on the way out on the other side of Thame and one near Oxford services coming back. The weather was mixed with heavy showers and low...

There are far fewer birds visible at this time of year although the level of the feeders still goes down. I topped up the nyjer seed feeder today and a goldfinch appeared within minutes. Curious thing, I have never, ever, seen a goldfinch around here except on my feeders, I have no idea where they came from or where they go. Although the field and garden birds are becomming invisible among the greenary there seems to be a good colony of house martins at Latimer, I wish I could say the same for this village. A couple of weeks ago I had to take a trip to the Wye Valley (what a hardship!). On the journey there was the usual split of red kites east of Oxford and buzzards to the west. The buzzards seem well established in the Cotswolds now. There was a good colony of swifts audible as well as visible at Burford and swifts or house martins visible around other villages. The RSPB Nags Head reserve near Parkend in the Forest of Dean is an excellent starting point for walking. Not much was visi...

A rare chance to do a little serious birding came up this morning. As I was to the east of London a trip up to Fishers Green in the Lea Valley Regional Park seemed in order. As usual at this time of year there were common terns giving displays of aerobatics over the lakes in their typical noisy manner. While they are always a delight to watch, the sight of a hobby hunting over the reed beds was even more exciting. At one point I even saw her talons come down as she took a large insect in mid air. On the lakes themselves were the usual selection of waterfowl: mallard, tufted duck, pochard, coot, moorhen, mute swans, great crested grebe and both canada and greylag geese. Curiously I saw no gadwall or shoveller nor, among the various chicks were any young grebe. I did see, however, ruddy duck at two locations on Seventy Acres Lake (t may have been the same individual and while crossing the footbridge at Hook Marsh one obligingly swam underwater. Also there were a pair of shelduck on a scr...