Skip to main content

Getting Quiet

The starlings are no longer turning up mob handed although we are still seeing singleton juveniles in the garden. Naturally I had just stocked up with fat bars on the assumption that we would be seeing half a litre or more consumed every day. The new bars are from Gardman which don't crumble when pecked in the way that the ones from the previous supplier did. This morning we had a great spotted woodpecker on the feeder tapping away at the side of the bar as if he was drumming. He really didn't seem to take much.

Great and blue tits are the most frequent visitors and we have been privilaged to see blue tit chicks being fed. In the front garden a magpie has discovered the fat blocks and has a novel system for feeding. He will perch on the branch that the feeder hangs from and stab with his beak sending a piece of fat to the ground. The then drops down to eat the morsel then flies back to the branch to repeat the process.

Out and about I have been walking early on the mornings on occasions and seeing deer has become quite commonplace.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

No Choice

Taking my usual walk today it was striking how the autumn colours had come on in the last few days. When the sun came out I really regretted not having the camera with me. There wasn't much to see in the way of variety or numbers of birds. A couple of probable skylarks put up on a cultivated field but the gem was naturally a red kite. Circling over the fields behind my house at tree top height it finally came over my head as I reached the edge of the field. Living where I do I suppose that I should be blasé about them by now but when one comes overhead there is no choice. I still just stop and say "wow!"
Post a Comment
Read more

Harvest

The arable fields between Ley Hill and Latimer have been harvested over the last couple of days. This morning I saw a group of yellowhammers in the middle of the road by a field gate. From the look of things they were eating spilled grain. Instead of flying into the hedgerow they flew away from me along the road at windscreen height. I haven't seen much else recently apart from a distant glimpse of a partridge and the occasional red kite.
Post a Comment
Read more

Warm Winter

A recent visit to Fishers Green didn't find anything exciting in the way of water fowl. There was a decent sized flock of wigeon at the far end of Holyfield Lake but nothing rare. Walking back on the other hand I was delighted to see a treecreeper on one of the bushes alongside the Flood Relief Channel. The pale grey chest caught my eye so easily. At home I am feeding but there isn't much being taken. Based on previous years I should have ordered some more fat bars for delivery before Christmas but it looks as if my existing supply will hold out for the rest of 2015. Visits to the feeders are brief with log gaps but we had a pair of goldfinches today and during the last month we have had long tailed tits and one visit observed by a coal tit. After a long absence we also had a goldcrest in the garden although its interest was in the Old Man's Beard growing through next door's leylandii hedge rather than anything I had done.
Post a Comment
Read more