During the recent storms my sunflower seed feeder vanished, possibly stolen by a squirrel. With the old feeder I observed that chaffinces didn't seem able to perch and use it although goldfinches and bullfinces were fine. A day or two ago I saw a pair of chaffinches perched quite happily and feeding on the new feeder. I think that the perches are ticker and a little longer than the old ones which presumably makes a difference for the finches.
Mostly though it has been blue and great tits on the feeders with robins, blackbirds, dunnocks and wood pigeons taking food on the ground.. The badger seems to visit on most nights as any uneaten raisins are cleaned up, and the feeding tray pushed around and turned over,
My next door neighbour as a broken slat on their kitchen ventilator and a pair of robins appear to be nesting inside. I hasten to add that these are static ventilators built into the brickwork not fans. Other than that the lesser celandines are in bloom under the front hedge, I tweeted a photo which I thought rather dull but which got over 500 views in 5 hours.
High summer and early autumn is always a quiet time for birds in my garden. I no longer feed after my summer holiday as I have ended up throwing away far to much mouldy fat or seed. Normally I would wait until November before putting the feeders back out but a party of long tailed tits appeared in the front garden today so I think that it might be worth while trying a single fat bar for the moment. For the past couple of weeks I have seen a lot of roadside signs saying "beware of deer" in places where I wouldn't normally see them. Last weekend I decided that they might be justified when I encountered a herd of roe deer in the road between Ley Hill and Latimer. While muntjac are seen often enough the roes tend to be shy and this was only the third time that I have had a good look at some in all the years that I have lived here.

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