Chiltern Birder

A business trip to Oxford today showed just how commonplace the red kite has become. I am not complaining but I saw pairs at Chesham, Askett, Longwick, Thame and the Oxford Services. The clear weather meant that in several cases the colouring of the plumage was distinctly visible. After last years dry autumn it was good to see the water meadows around Thame flooded this year. Even nicer was a flock of lapwings in a field just above the water level. The trip meant that I had an opportunity to see my garden feeders in daylight. While having breakfast I saw chaffinch, blue tit, great tit and coal tit. That made me think it was time to expand the feeding and now have one seed feeder, one fat bar and seed on the ground tray.

I decided that it was time to start feeding seriously again and filled the main seed feeder with high energy mix and put a scoop of "blackbird mix" on the ground tray. The dunnock that was in the garden at the time showed a singular lack of interest. Later I heard the sound of a wood pigeon taking to the air and had a look out of the window. A pigeon was feeding from the ground tray and a starling was on the feeder. Within the next few minutes the feeder was visited by a pair of marsh or willow tits (too difficult to tell apart in the rather poor light this afternoon), a great tit and a blue tit. Altogether an encouraging start for the season.