Skip to main content

Water Water

Despite the recent heavy rain the state of our chalk streams does not seem to be improving. Yesterday there was still no water flowing under Chesham Town Bridge. Walking into the town from the Water Meadow (rather a joke considering my previous comment) car park I was delighted to see a kite flying over the woods opposite. It flew up the valley and then swung across Newtown and out of site behind the buildings. That is the first red kite that I have seen since spring or early summer.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Not as Quiet as I Thought

 The garden has seemed very quiet with hardly any birds seen but I hadn't been explicitly looking. I have just started putting a little food out in the front and in 24 hours have seen Robin, Great and Blue Tits and Magpies landing in my tiny front garden. Yesterday I heard a song that was unusual to me which the Merlin app identified as a Blackcap. Unfortunately for me the bird was ensconsed in the middle of my Forsythia which is still in full leaf and I couldn't get a sighting. This afternoon I saw Robins in the garden and corvids overhead. I set Merlin running while I swept fallen leaves from the front path. The app identified Robin, Rook, Wren, Jackdaw, Greenfinch and Blackbird. I also heard Parakeets but not while the app was running. 
Post a Comment
Read more

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.
Post a Comment
Read more

Still Quiet

With the mild weather we are not seeing a lot of birds in the garden yet. The fat feeder in the front garden is seeing very little activity. In the back the starlings are busy with the fat feeder and goldfinches are regulars on the sunflower seeds. There are random visits by blue tits and this morning I was lucky enough to see a coal tit pay a very brief visit. At ground level a pair of wood pigeons stamp over the plants and a dunnock and a wren occasionally come out of hiding. Not far away in the fields there is a lot of activity. A flock of skylarks was busy among recently sprouted brassicas while yellowhammers were flitting through a hawthorn hedge. It was pure chance that one was still for long enough to be identified with the naked eye. Normally I only see them from the car when they find singing posts on roadside hedges in the spring. Away from home the River Chess is in a fairly poor way, at the moment rising from the spring by the Water Meadow car park in the town. It is sh...
2 comments
Read more