Chiltern Birder

 The garden has seemed very quiet with hardly any birds seen but I hadn't been explicitly looking. I have just started putting a little food out in the front and in 24 hours have seen Robin, Great and Blue Tits and Magpies landing in my tiny front garden. Yesterday I heard a song that was unusual to me which the Merlin app identified as a Blackcap. Unfortunately for me the bird was ensconsed in the middle of my Forsythia which is still in full leaf and I couldn't get a sighting. This afternoon I saw Robins in the garden and corvids overhead. I set Merlin running while I swept fallen leaves from the front path. The app identified Robin, Rook, Wren, Jackdaw, Greenfinch and Blackbird. I also heard Parakeets but not while the app was running. 

 I haven't been posting much due personal matters but still have my eyes open. One thing that has struck me is the eastward spread of birds of prey. I have seen buzzards over Havering-atte-Bower but the big suprise in the past month as been a red kite over the M25 near Stapleford Abbotts in Essex. The skys still look empty by Chiltern standards though. A nice little spot last week was a goldcrest during a visit to Kew Gardens.  I have downloaded the Merlin app which supposedly identifies birdsong. I have had little opportunity to try it out but a quck test in the garden showd that it correctly told me that I could hear jackdaws and a robin. I look forward to using it on the coast to see if it can distinguish the various waders for me. 

 I have given up with seed feeders as I had the feeding  ports ripped off my last two by squirrels. Ground feeding has its own problems. When food doesn't get taken during the day it can attract other creatures. Normally I would expect mice or rats but thus time a badger had been digging seed out from between the grass steps. Birdwise there has been nothing of note but I did see a muntjac in the front garden earlier this year.

 Health issues mean that I haven't been paying any attention to my blogs but I was roused from my afternoon cup of tea today but a most unholy racket. Yes the parakeets have finallyarrived in my part of Chesham with a flock of five in the tree in my neighbours garden. It had to come eventually as they have been in Rickmansworth for years. Not much else happening apart from the usual circling kites and the occasional buzzard. I haven't seen anything eating my rowan berries but the tree is being steadily stripped. Usually its a mix of wood pigeons and blackbirds. Collared doves seem to be back in this end of the village as I saw a pair while waiting for the bus this week. They used to be garden regulars but hadn't seen any near the house for years.

 After a couple of days of frost the garden looks more like a typical winter's day with birds visiting throughout the day. Blue tits are the main visitor plus one or two marsh (or possibly willow) tits and the occasional great tit. A flock of long tailed tits paid a fairly brief visit. Robins in the back garden have paired, seemingly a little later than the ones in the front.  Due to ill health the ivy on my back fence hasn't been trimmed and has developed a good crop of berries. The only bird that I have seen showing interest has been a wood pigeon which spent some time yesterday feasting on them. In the front I put out a fat block yesterday afternoon which, so far, has attracted a grey squirrel. The pair of robins and the occasional blackbird are active on the hanging table.

 The lack of finches in the garden is disturbing. I am seeing blue tits and great tits coming to the feeders for sunflower seeds but the boards of goldfinches seem to have vanished.. In the front garden we now have a pair of robins which come to a small hanging table which gets a mix of fat pellets, dried mealworms and pinhead oatmeal. This mix also attracts wood pigeons and blackbirds although the latter seem to prefer the fallen quinces. Over the bank holiday I was staying in Romford, where I was brought up. On a visit to Bedfords Park I came across two species that would have been unheard of when I was brought up there. There was a flock of parakeets in the woods at the north end of the park while a pair of buzzards were circling between the park and Havering-atte-Bower.

 I have been seeing reports online of waxwings and redwings in good number. At home the blackbirds have long since stripped the rowan of berries and I don't hold out hope of anything exciting. The back garden has been very quiet, not helped by neighbours having an extension built. Recently a flock of blue tits invaded the garden going, I think, for insects sheltering in battening attached to the back wall. I disinfected one my my feeders and put out a small quantity of sunflower hearts. The flock, including a few great tits, reappeared and had me thinking that it was time to put out the other feeders. However they left without finishing what was there and the garden has been devoid of birds ever since. The front garden has been a different matter although all birds have been commonplace. I have a small hanging table on which I put a mix of fat pellets, dried mealworms and pinhead oatmeal. The robin isn't tame but he is usually sitting in a tree complaining about my presence by ...

 The garden has been disturbingly quiet this month when traditionally the feeders will be continously active. I am seeing a handful of blue and great tits on the feeders but no finches and only the occasional long tailed tit. Normally I woukld expect goldfinches and a few bullfinches on the feeders and chaffinches and redpolls on the ground at this time of year. It has been a strange winter, very mild apart from one cold snap so I hope that they are simply don't need to come into the gardens. On a better note I saw a pair of sparrows in the front hedge this morning so, hopefully, they might be spreading from their stronghold in privet hedges at the other end of the village. Away from home a family trip to Yorkshire netted three pairs of goosander on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal between Shipley and Saltaire. I think this is the first time that I have been close enough to get a good naked eye view. I have been neglecting this blog, probably because most web browsing is now done on t...

 During September and October the garden normally seems to be devoid of birds. For the last few days there has been a flock of tits on the feeder. At least 5 blues at a time plus two or three long tailed as well as the occasional great and coal. This only takes place later in the afternoon, usually at around 5.

 I was quite excited this morning when I disturbed two house sparrows on the fat feeder in the front garden. Luckily they did return later. I didn't get a chance to look out of the window but I also heard a great spotted woodpecker call in the front garden. In the back garden we had our first nuthatch sighting of the year which makes three garden firsts for 2022. The redpolls didn't linger this year and I haven't seen the coal tits for a while but we have had the usual regular selection including blackbird, robin, blue tit, great tit, long tailed tit, chaffinch, goldfinch and bullfinch. Out and about sightings have included red legged partridge alongside the A418 near Tiddington, skylark on the fields behind the house and a trip to the Forest of Dean with a far too brief glimpse of a dipper but consolation from a pair of kingfishers along the Cannop Brook.

 I had been wondering over the last couple of days if the redpolls would return after last year's visit. Luckily today I saw two on the feeders. As they did seem to prefer ground feeding last year maybe they will clean up some of the mess the goldfinches and bullfinches leave. The finches tend to bite sunflower seeds so that they eat the middle section while the two ends fall to the ground.  The only other sighting of note in the garden has been a collared dove. Not unusual in itself and they are common at the other end of the village but it is the first time that I have seen one in the garden for several years. I paid a brief visit to the Upper Ray Meadows between Aykesbury and Bicester on Wednesday. I picked the wrong shoes and ended up with the half melted frost soaking my socks. With the dampness on the uppers refreezing I decided to call it a day before noon but still managed to see a flock of redwing, four lapwing, a snipe and an unidentified wader that flew across too q...

 With adverts for the Great British Birdwatch on television I decided to do a timed count of species in my back garden today. Thirty minutes gave a total of 8 species. I was watching from an upstairs window so I didn't use binoculars as I would have a direct line of sight into other bedrooms and might give cause for complaint. This did mean that I didn't have a good view of the base of the bushes at the bottom of the garden. Species seen were blue tit, great tit, chaffinch, greenfinch, goldfinch, bullfinch, blackbird and robin. I was surprised at the lack of coal tits as they are quite regular visitors. Dunnocks seem a lot less common although I did see one yesterday while the wrens often stay under cover. The resident wood pigeons seem to have moved on. We did have a small flock of long tailed tits pay a visit over the weekend and starlings are regulars on the feeder in the front garden.

 I came in after a couple of days away to find the contents of the fat feeders being demolished by starlings. This was quite a surprise as the starlings usually vanish until they have broods to raise at which point the bill for fat bars goes through the roof. We are getting a good selection of the usual suspects, within minutes of coming home I saw blue tits, a coal tit, goldfinches, blackbird and robin. Curiously there don't seem to be as many great tits around as usual.

I had to replace my seed feeder last week. I had just started putting out sunflower seeds when an over eager squirrel ripped one of the feeder ports right off. I included a replacement with a protective cage with my winter feed order which did attract the very occasional blue or great tit. I thought that the finches wouldn't appreciate the cage so added a second feeder to the set, replacing a flutterbutter feeder. I had become unhappy about using that product, despite its popularity with the starlings later in the season, due to the use of plastics. I looked out of an upstairs window just as the light was starting to fade this afternoon and saw that the new feeder was getting well used although the squirrel proof one was being ignored.  The old man's beard growing through my neighbours leylandii hedge seems to be popular as a source of cover and a wren was investigating the seed heads. For a time a robin became very proprietorial about the feeders, keeping the other birds o...

I was in Whitby for a few days in August and noticed that there seemed to be guillemots visible from the piers which is something that I haven't noticed before. Subsequent reports such as this one suggest that this is a "bad thing" caused by a shortage of food out to sea. I took a boat trip down the coast which was interesting and rather disturbing. Plenty of guillemots were visible on the water from just after we cleared the harbour, what was exciting was the sight of gannets travelling parallel to the coast once we were half a mile or so out to sea. We spotted a solitary seal but the highlight was a pod of bottle-nosed dolphins. The skipper took the boat in a circle around the pod which must have been disturbing for them.

The most striking thing about this year so far is the crash in starling numbers in the garden. The regular May invasion happened but numbers were in single figures and, curiously, they seemed reluctant to use the starlign feeder, preferring fat pellets and dried mealworms from the ground feeder. I would normally shift several kilos of fat in this period, this time a single 500gm fat bar sufficed and tht saw more action from pigeons and blue tits than from starlings. After the worries about the dry weather earlier in the year our blue tits seem to be breeding well with plenty of juveniles in the garden and adults carrying food away. We have also had a pair of goldfinches in regular attendance throughout the spring. Today a cock bullfinch appeared in the back garden for the first time since the winter. At ground level the badgers no longer seem to be visiting on a nightly basis. In the front garden wrens have nested in the bat box. It seems almost impossible to open the front door with...

At this time of year there are always fewer birds in the garden and those that are seen are often taking food away for their chicks. Even the badgers seem to have stopped visiting, I went into the garden last night and disturbed a rat on the ground feeder. This wasn't helped by the fact that hardly anything had been touched during the day. I will be cutting back on what I put in the ground feeder for a while. Despite the lack of large flocks or anything unusual it has been a pleasant time for birds. I am not sure where the robins in the front garden nested but they raised a brood as I have seen juveniles in the front garden and also had a family of dunnocks on the back fence. A wren has been very vocal near my kitchen window which does make the washing up a little more pleasant. Sparrows seem to have nested nearby as I have heard them when outside and have seen one or two individuals in my rowan tree. Starlings will probably be absent from the garden fgor at least another week bu...

One thing that has always suprised me is that I never seem to see any sparrows in the garden despite there being plenty elsewhere in the village. Easter was a welcome exception with a pair coming into the garden for just a few minutes. Despite the variety of food on offer they haven't returned. The feeders still attract tits, more commonly great tits than blue at the moment, goldfinces usually as singletons or pairs and the regular pair of bullfinches. At ground level blackbird, robin and dunnock are resident as well as visits from wood pigeons and magpies. In the front garden the robins seem to have raised a brood as I saw one in juvenile plumage in the quicnce trees this morning. I have tried a new addition to the various feeds that I put out. A mix of pinhead oatmeal and Haith's softbill food. Scattered lightly on a ground feeding tray it usually goes quite quickly. On thing that I have learned is not to concentrate the softbill food. A small heap tends to be untouched but ...

Settling in to the breeding season we are seeing some changes in the garden. The redpolls seem to have moved on while the goldfinches are appearing in far smaller numbers. Rather than all feeder ports in use with birds waiting we now see one or two at a time although the pair of bullfinches are still around. Numbers of tits seem to be down but we did get our first long tailed tits for some time this morning. They ignored the seed feeders but took fat pellets from the ground feeder. With fewer birds around the dunnock has become less shy and is now regularly seen taking food scattered on the lawn.

It was a fine spring like day today with the lesser celendines under the front hedge finally starting to flower which attracted a buff tailed bumblebee. In the back a siskin was sampling the sunflower hearts. He posed for some time as I stood at the bedroom window and studied him carefully through glasses. I think that this is only the second time that I have seen one in the garden. The lesser redpolls are still regular visitors clearing up the pieces of sunflower seed that the goldfinches drop. Between them and the pigeons that patch of lawn is getting pecked bar. While I was watching the siskin a dunnock turned up as well but not for long as the lack of a red breast didn't stop the robin from seeing him as a threat. I know that robins can be vicious little devils but I thought that the behaviour was triggered by colour.