I don't normally expect any bird activity in the Garden until well into November but today a nuthatch turned up and investigated the empty feeder.I have put a bulk order in with Haiths, hopefully he will return and I won't get food rotting in the feeders as has happened when I have tried feeding early in the season before.
I haven't done much birding during the summer but a recent visit to the Forest of Dean did result in a close encounter with a wild boar. I was in the sculpture park on an old raiway embankment when I heard a boar grunting just below me a few yards away. I couldn't see him as the undergrowth was very thick but from the volume it was about the same distance as you would be from a pig at a city farm. I moved a little down the path before leaning over the fence to see if I could spot him but without luck. I did see a small heard of fallow deer later on though. Earlier in the day I had stopped at Brierley to have a look at the beaver release. I did manage to see a beaver dam but no animals.
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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