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Chicks


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 cloud alternating quickly with bright sunshine. I also saw a buzzard while travelling towards Thame from the Oxford direction, the furthest east of any sighting that I have had in Oxfordshire. Near Chesham there was a hawk like shape in silhouette perched on a tree. Based on my sightings on the Gwent Levels I would lay even money on that being a cuckoo.

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