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.
With some cold dry weather there has been a lot of activity on the feeders this weekend. With three different robins visiting the garden there have been fewer fights than I would have expected. The sight of the weekend has been a robin regularly visiting the starling feeder with a pair of beady eyes peeping over the top of the fat bar. As I had run out of sunflower hearts I topped up the ground hopper with pinhead oatmeal which seems to have been very popular. I even had a song thrush inside the cage which is a first. Althogther the weekend has included goldfinches, chaffinches, great tits, blue tits, coal tits, marsh/willow tit (I must learn how to distinguish those), blackbird, song thrush, robin, dunnock and wood pigeon. Unusually for this area a heron also flew across the garden during the day. I haven't seen any long tailed tits or greenfinches around here for a while and there wasn't a single house sparrow around during the weekend.
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