Chiltern Birder

The feeder seemed to go mad yesterday with a dozen starling chicks trying to get at the fat. At one point they were even standing on top of each other. Apart from that the coal tits obviously have a brood as I keep seeing the adults taking beakfuls of food away. Also in the garden I saw a small copper butterfly. Driving home in the late evening on Tuesday I saw something large for a stoat but small for a ferret running away from me on the road from Latimer to Ley Hill. I didn't get a frontal view but judging by the colour I would guess a juvenile polecat. Across the fields it would have been less than half a mile from the other individual that I have seen here. Walking across the fields today there were three or four skylarks visible but only one singing.

One of the stranger sights on the fat feeder is the pigeons who have really taken to the fat bars. At one point there was a wood pigeon on the feeder being pecked at by a starling and totally ignoring him despite some breast feathers being pulled out. That indivudual was identfiable for several days by the feathers. The juvenile starlings are appearing on the feeders now making a lot of noise and sometimes sitting on the fat bar itself and demanding to be fed.