First Swallows and Cuckoos

I saw my first swallow locally this morning while walking along Botley Road into Chesham. It wasn't the first however, four days ago I was at Fishers Green where there was a huge flock taking insects just above the water surface. There were also at least two cuckoos calling in the area and the sight of a warbler on the reeds showed why they were there. Unfortunately the view was too brief to get a firm identification and the Lea Valley Park website suggests that both reed and sedge warblers were present. It was nice to hear cuckoos for the first time since 2010. There was nothing else excpetional in the Lea Valley, the tern rafts were full of black headed gulls and the canada geese had goslings and a few coot chicks were visible. Today I travelled to Thame by bus and, without the need to concentrate on driving, it was striking just how many red kites there are now. There were some lovely views with the birds coming down below tree top level. Near Chinnor one was keeping pace with the bus, which must have been doing at least 30, with barely a wingbeat which explains why they can seem to vanish if you look away for even a second.

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Usual Suspects

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.

More Starlings

At least one brood of starlings have been regular visitors to the feeder and today the fledglings got the hang of taking the food for themselves. Other broods must be less developed as adults were still taking away quantities of fat. The tits aren't so common at the moment, I don't know if this is because they have dispersed, if wild food is available or if pressure from the starlings has driven them off. Single blue tits are dropping in fairly regularly and a coal tit took fat away as well. The woodpecker seems to have become a regular visitor and still has a brood to feed. He definitely comes before the starlings in the pecking order and keeps them off the feeder until he has finished. The new feeder with perching rings is popular with the chaffinches and the goldfinches, the latter suddenly seem to prefer the high energy mix to the nyjer seed. With all this demand for feeding young ones the fat is going down very rapidly and I am putting larger quantities out on the ground t...

Easter

As well as the usual suspects the last couple of days have given us visits by long tailed tits and coal tits. The real treat, however, was a house sparrow in the tree at the bottom of the garden. They come to that tree very occasionally but I never see them on the feeders. I had to make a trip to Bristol today. Being behind the wheel of a car isn't the best location for birding but on a long journey there are a few that can be recognised. Kites were in evidence between Great Missenden and Oxford as usual and I also saw swallows on a phone wire. I know that they have been around for a while but somehow I seldom get to see them until later in the season. In the Cotswolds I saw two buzzards, curiously both were being attacked by a single crow. On the return a lapwing flew across the road between Oxford and Thame, and a few minutes later a grey hawk like bird which I would put down as a possible cuckoo.

Chiltern Birder

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