No birds were involved but I was in Chesham this morning and decided to take a stroll round by the Town Bridge. Considering the drought I was expecting the usual dry bed. Instead the stream was running strongly and, unlike most local gardens, there was a strong plant growth as well. It wasn't just the spring at Watermeadow, there was a good flow coming down the old mill leat from Pednormead. I haven't seen anything in the press about Affinity Water cutting back on extraction and could find nothing on Google but with such a flow in these conditions it has to be the case.
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...
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