Chiltern Birder

Red kites don't normally warrant a mention in my part of the Chilterns any more but today I travelled over to Thame by bus. Going through Studley Green near High Wycombe on the A40 there were a huge number circling in a small area. I kept trying to count and found that there were at least seven in my line of sight at any moment with at least as many again circling just out of my vision. I have never seen so many in one place and can only imagine that somebody in the village is putting food out for them. Feeding carnivores always brings the risk that once habituated they will take things that they shouldn't including pets. In Thame there was yet another sign of summer as swifts were making a lot of noise. I saw some decent sized parties chasing each other above the shops.

The sultanas on the ground feeder are being eaten. On two occasions today I saw a hen blackbird hop up to it and take one or two. She would take the sultana and hop away with it and then return for the next one rather than eat at the feeder. When I put out some more fat treats a robin was down almost before I moved away pecking at the dried mealworms embedded in them. Next time I looked out they had all gone. I am guessing a magpie as there are plenty about but I haven't seen one take them. I might try suet pellets instead when these run out. After driving out to the farm where we always buy our Christmas bird we did some shopping in Thame. The water meadows on the edge of the towm were flooded with a large flock of black headed gulls in residence. Not much else to see apart from the usual crop of red kites throughout the journey.

The autumn colours are changing rapidly now, there are far more gold and copper colours visible. A trip to Thame today by bus was suprising in that the only kites seen were over Thame itself. The watermeadows outside the town were partially flooded which is more than I have seen for a while and gulls were present in greater numbers than is normal around here. On Saturday, driving back from Haddenham late at night I saw a small deer beside the road at Cadsden. I had a better view than is usual at night and realised from its elegant look that it was a roe as opposed to the rather pig like appearance of a muntjac. I now wonder how many times in the past I have dismissed brief glimpses of roe deer as muntjac. In the garden I haven't seen any activity on the fat bar but there are a few beak marks so something is taking it when I am not looking.

After a long period without putting feeders out the birds seemed to have abandoned my garden and what food I put out this month was being ignored. Finally today I had a solitarty blue tit and a robin coming to the starling bar (no starlings of course!) Yesterday a trip down to Thame naturally gave the usual crop of red kites and, becoming unusual these days, a kestrel hovering over the road between Thame and Longwick.

For a variety of reasons I have only been putting out fat blocks this winter. In the recent very cold weather there has been a total lack of birds in the garden. One bright spot this morning was a wren hopping into the ivy at one corner of the back wall. This is the first wren that I have seen in the garden for quite a while. On Christmas day I had to drive over to Essex for a family visit and was lucky to get a glimpse of a fieldfare on the bushes by the Magic Roundabout in Hemel. Before Christmas I was in Thame and there were about a dozen kites over the town. The concentration of kites over inhabited areas in the snow was quite striking.

A business trip to Oxford today showed just how commonplace the red kite has become. I am not complaining but I saw pairs at Chesham, Askett, Longwick, Thame and the Oxford Services. The clear weather meant that in several cases the colouring of the plumage was distinctly visible. After last years dry autumn it was good to see the water meadows around Thame flooded this year. Even nicer was a flock of lapwings in a field just above the water level. The trip meant that I had an opportunity to see my garden feeders in daylight. While having breakfast I saw chaffinch, blue tit, great tit and coal tit. That made me think it was time to expand the feeding and now have one seed feeder, one fat bar and seed on the ground tray.