Chiltern Birder

Heard my first cuckoo of the year today at about ten to nine. It seemed to be calling from somewhere in the Tylers Hill area. On the feeders was a great spotted woodpecker at breakfast time and I heard a green calling when I went out. The various birds are wolfing down the feed now and the starlings seem to prefer the hanging feeder to the specialist starling feeder despite the acrobatics involved.

Not the earliest year but still a nice suprise. Walking into Chesham along Botley Road one crossed in front of me and flew across a field of horses. This field is popular with the swallows probably because there are always animals grazing with associated insects around them. I also saw an orange tip butterfly on the same walk and noticed that flowers were out on the horse chestnuts. Spring develops so rapidly! In the garden the starlings are becoming a lot more active.

The starlings are starting to appear now and I saw a party come down to the ground feeder and clear out the dried mealworms in seconds. They don't seem much interested in the suet pellets despite loving the fat bars. They are taking beakfuls of fat back to the nest, several times I have seen one come to the feeder, take a mouthful for itself then load up its beak for the return trip. In Cowcroft Wood the bluebells are coming out and there should be a magnificent display in a few days. The celandines are fully out with some dazzling displays.

After the long wet winter we now seem to be getting a very warm dry April. I have been watering a lot of seedlings so the level in the water butt is getting pretty low. A little overnight rain definitely wouldn't go amiss. The warm weather has its benefits, this afternoon I walked up to Ley Hill Common and sat in the sun outside The Crown with a glass of beer watching a red kite circling in a totally clear blue sky. I bought a small tub of dried meal worms this afternoon and put some out on the ground feeder, which already had some fat pellets. Forty minutes later the meal worms had gone but the pellets were hardly touched. I'll have to keep a watch and see what is its that likes them.

The local magpies have been expressing a lot of interest in the blackbirds' nest and the alarm calls have sent me out into the garden to chase them off on a couple of occasions. I was rewarded for the good deed later with an excellent view of a great spotted woodpecker on the feeder in the front garden. The dunnocks seem to have lost interest in the honeysuckle so I imagine that they found it too close to the back door, and to my potting bench, for a nest. Goldfinches and chaffinches have been regular visitors along with blue and great tits and of course the resident robin. One nice sight last week was a buzzard and a kite in the air together over Botley. With them both circling it was a great opportunity to study the differences in the silhouettes.

We now seem to have pretty steady custom on the feeders. Great tits and a few blues come to the fat feeders while chaffinches take both fat and sunflower hearts. Goldfinches are pretty regular for the sunflower hearts but don't touch the fat feeders. Robins and blackbirds occasionally take fat from the feeders as well as foraging at ground level. Dunnocks feed in undergrowth and don't even seem to come out to the ground feeder. Wood pigeons trample plants around the feeders and sometimes take fat as well while the long tailed tits are occasional visitors. The ground feeder had a visit yesterday from a field mouse who quite calmly sat there nibbling at a piece of fat block for some time. No sign of woodpeckers or starlings however.