Chiltern Birder

With several things that I needed to do coming together I ended up taking a lengthy tour of the country over the last week. One thing that struck me was the lack of kestrels along the roads, they used to be so common along main roads and motorways. Starting from Chesham last Sunday we spent the day in the Cotswolds. Steeple Barton Abbey gardens were open and being one of the first to arrive we were lucky to see a green woodpecker making off for a quieter location. The lake was criss crossed by swallows skimming the surface like tiny exocets. The first buzzard of the trip was seen between Chipping Norton and Burford then turning onto the A40 we saw a red kite above Burford School. Much further west and we might see the Chiltern and Welsh populations merging. On Tuesday I had to drive from Burford to Wensleydale. Buzzards used to be something to see in the wilds of Wales but I kept seeing them along the main roads in locations where I would have expected kestrels. I was suprised to see s...

October is probably the quietest month for garden feeding. It seems a little busier than previous years, I put out a small amount of food in one feeder and it vanished in a week. I have filled one seed feeder now and food is being taken. With the lighter mornings now the clocks have gone back I have noticed a robin and a great tit but the garden is still generally quiet. When this batch of food is taken I will put out another feeder as well. I haven't had any real birding opportunities this month and neither have I seen much while travelling around. A brief glimpse of a large bird of prey on the M25 (probably a buzzard) and another even more briefly glimpsed near Leighton Buzzard (possibly a kite). The one nice sighting a couple of weeks ago was a pair of lapwing flying across the road on the flat land just on the Hemel side of the Leighton Buzzard by pass.