So far winter hasn't brought anything exciting to the garden but, with the mild weather, it is clear which are the most favoured bird foods. The finches, of course, love the sunflower hearts. The blue and great tits are also showing a preference for sunflower seed and largely ignore the fat balls in the adjacent hanging feeder. I have even seen them waiting on the feeder arms for the finches to leave a free port rather than peck at the fat balls. I also hung a FlutterButter peanut butter feeder next to the seed feeder and that has been totally ignored.
We were getting a small group of starlings who were making a big dent in the fat block and the front and the fat balls in the back garden but they have moved on and I am starting to become concerned that the remaining contents are going to become mouldy.
At ground level I am feeding raisins, fat pellets and dried mealworms. The robin will take fat pellets and mealworms but can't clear the feeders on his own. A blackbird will turn up occasionally and take a lot of the mealworms but we can go days without a visit. Pigeons and magpies were coming into the garden in the autumn and clearing up the fat pellets quite promptly after they were put out but they haven;t been seen for several weeks. The feed suppliers say that blackbirds will take raisins but they are untouched until the badger's nightly visit.
We used to have a pair of wood pigeons who were practically permanent residents but these have been absent since the summer, instead a singleton makes occasional visits. As a result nothing is clearing the sunflower nibs that the finches drop on the lawn below the feeder. I am starting to worry that this might attract rats. So far the camera trap has shown that they are not regular visitors but that could always change.
I dug out my tripod recently and tried setting the camera trap to capture pictures from the hanging feeders. Whatever position I use involves tilting the camera upwards resulting in the feeder being under exposed giving me some nice silhuettes to identify.
I have had a couple of trips to College Lake but without seeing anything remarkable. Plenty of redwin in the bushes and wigeon on the lake though. One visit had a lovely arial display by a large flock of lapwing as well as encountering a trio of roe deer at the far end of the reserve.
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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