Chiltern Birder

 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.

 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 ...

 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.

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...

In most years I only see starlings in the garden in spring and early summer when they turn out mob handed and get through half a kilo of fat in a day. In the past week, however, I have had a part of three on the fat feeders in both the front and back gardens. Another usual visit today was by a pair of greenfinches who briefly came to the sunflower seed feeder. The feeders are all very busy now with seed being topped up daily. The dried mealworms in the ground feeder are proving popular with the blackbird and robin but the fat pellets only seem to be of interest to the magpies and wood pigeons. Despite the claims by the feed merchant the raisins are generally ignored by the birds but the badger cleans them up overnight. A group of long tailed tits made a suprise visit at dusk today. Judging by their behaviour I suspect that they were taling a last feed of the night before roosting in my neighbours leylandii. This seems rather more attractive to birds now that old man's beard has ...

The fat pellets put out for the robins in the ground feeder trays seem to be attracting magpies. The pellets can vanish within 15 or 20 minutes of being put out and, as often as not, I don't even seev the culprits. Luckily the robins seem quite content with the dried mealworms which the magpies definitely regard as second best. The magapies are suprisingly nervy birds for their and will fly off at the slightest movement within the house, even just a twitch of an upstairs curtain. This time of year is usually very quiet when it comes to garden birds but we do have regular visits from blue and great tits that require keeping the sunflower seed feeder about half full althouhg they have mostly ignored the fat ball that I hung on the other feeder. Chaffinches and goldfinches also turn up occasionally but only singletons. A wren has put in an occasional appearance but had no interest in the ground feeders. Uneaten food usually vanishes before the next morning ass we often get a badger...

 From past experience I don't expect to see a huge amount of activity in the garden until mid November at the earliest. The sunflower seeds in the back garden are still being taken and I see occasional blue or great tits and occasionally a goldfinch or bullfinch. There isn't much touching the fat and I expect that I will have to take those feeders down soon or the content s will go mouldy. Nothing seem to be taking the fat balls from the hanging feeder any more while the fat bar in the starling feeder just seems to get an occasional visit from a robin. In the front garden there is a massive crop of berries on the rowan tree. A pair of blackbirds seem to have settled in for the long haul and fly out of the tree with angry alarm calls when I go in or out of the house. Despite the rich harvest I suspect that they will still have the tree stripped before the winter migrants put in a show.

I had already seen tweets from people who had seen swallows and heard cuckoos but it was only this morning that I saw a swallow. It was skimming over pasture in Ley Hill where the farmer had been keeping a herd of charolais cattle. Cuckoos, sadly, are still silent here despite the lack of traffic noise. I couple of nights ago I tawney owl in a neighbour's tree was making an absolutely defening racket which I could hear indoors. I went outside and could hear his mate in the same, or an adjacent, tree and another male some distance away responding to the call. I was pleased, yesterday, to see a pair of bullfinches on the feeder, the first since the storms in early march. Chaffinches and goldfinches are also feeding regularly as well as the usual blue and great tits. There haven't been any badgers at their feeding station recently and after finding evidence of rats visiting I have stopped putting food out for the moment.

We got off very lightly from the storms with one fence developing a bit of a wobble and the squirrel baffle on the bird feeder twisted until the mounting snapped. Our visiting badger seems to have made up for this though after deciding that there was something tasty lurking under my alpine bed. I wouldn't have minded so much if it had just been the weeds that I was going to take out in the next few days anyway but I do begrudge him the primroses. Since the storms there have been very few finches coming to the feeders and the great tits and the nuthatch seem to have moved away too. The blue and long tailed tits are still around in numbers as well as the resident robins and blackbirds. I was getting a bit fed up with uneaten bird food on the ground so I tried moving the feeding point by about three feet. Now the blackbird comes and hoovers up the mealworms and fat pellets. The robin on the other hand has no truck with feeding off the ground and tries to imitate the blu...

I came in just before noon and looked out of the back window to see a totally undistinguished brownish grey bird, about the size of a great tit, at the bottom of the garden. Without any outstanding markings I couldn't identify it so fetched the binoculars, just in time for it to fly into a bush. With some patient waiting it reappeared and returned to the tree, I found the spot with the glasses just in time for it to fly away. Whatever it was it didn't show any interest in the feeders. In Chesham this morning after heavy rain, and reports of flooding elsewhere in the country, water was actually flowing under the Town Bridge. How much of the rain will actually enter the water table is another matter, on recent performance I don't hold out much hope for the flow outlasting a few dry days. Contrary to expectations we are still not seeing more than one or two goldfinches in the garden those that come are still regulars along with the coal tit and nuthatch. The blue and great...

We get the occasional nuthatch in the garden during the winter but typically these are very brief visits to take a little fat from the starling feeder. For the last two days, however, we have had not one but two individuals making repeated visits to take sunflower hearts. It is striking that they never share the feeder, one may perch nearby but will wait for the other to finish before occupying one of the ports. A little entertainment was provided yesterday morning by a rather aggressive robin who wouldn't let any of the tits perch on the fat ball feeder. I didn't see him attempt to use it himself but he stood guard on the squirrel baffle ready to attack any blue tit that did. A solitary goldfinch turned up yesterday and there was a pair on the feeder this morning. If they follow the practice of previous years I suspect that we will have serious numbers turning up in the next day or so. The long tailed tits haven't returned but the coal tit is a regular and a blackbir...

With sunflower hearts and a fat ball feeder in the back garden and a fat bar in the front the tits have been turning up in numbers. Mainly blues but we have also had the occasional great and a single coal tit. At lunchtime today I looked out to see the fat ball feeder absolutely covered with long tailed tits. After a while the flock moved on up the lane taking a toll from the feeder in the front garden on their way. So far we have had no finches but the resident robins are in evidence as well as the occasional wood pigeon and blackbird.

It wasn't worth putting in another bulk order for feed so I bought some fat nuggets from the garden centre as there is still a lot of activity on the feeders by juvenile blue and great tits. I also cut up an old pallet as I needed some scrap timber which left me with a piece that would stand upright so I decided to try attaching the camera trap to it. After a few experiments I had it lined up to film the ground feeder overnight. I baited it with raisins and fat nuggets which I hoped would attract badgers. One did put his nose through the fence but turned straight round, I suspect that a cat was occupying the garden as I had plenty of shots of one who seemed to be watching for field mice. I set the trap quite early and had to replace the fat nuggets. I didn't think that a blackbird could carry this much. I put out fresh fat nuggets and between visits by the cat this little chap helped himself. Come the morning the blackbird was back for some raisins

Suddenly this afternoon three starlings paid a visit to the feeder. The birds were all in adult plumage and only stayed on the feeder for a few minutes. I don't think that they took any more than the blackbird who made a couple of visits obviously filling his beak to take back to a chick. On the seed feeder a pair of chaffinches has been turning up as well as the regular couple of goldfinches.The highlight recently as been a blue tit feeding a solitary youngster who has been coveniently posing on the fence right by the living room window.

Well one yellowhammer! Driving between Ley Hill and Latimer yesterday I spotted a single yellowhammer perched on the roadside hedge. As my passenger had never seen one we kept a special lookout on the way back and, of course there wasn't one to be seen. I used to reckon on seeing several when driving this way in the spring. We did see a muntjac that ambled our of the hedgerow in front of the car without any concern for its own safety. The day was good for bluebells. They were probably at their best a few days ago but the display in the woods was still magnificent. When we managed to get downwind of a drift the smell was wonderful.   In the garden we are starting to see juveniles being fed. Today a blue tit was taking fat from a peanut butter feeder for a young one perched conveniently, for me, on the fence just by the window. We seem to have a pair of goldfinches around but we aren't seeing anything remotely unusual. I a...

Blue and great tits are demolishing the sunflower hearts and the fat balls with the blackbird also clinging precariously to the fat ball feeder rather than using the starling feeder. The latter is getting no attention at all as we haven't seen a single starling for ages. In the garden we are also seeing a pair of robins (well they aren't fighting so I assume it is a pair), dunnocks and wood pigeons. Very occasionally a solitary goldfinch is turning up but always looks very nervous away from a group, spending more time checking the sky than feeding on sunflower hearts.

The bullfinches haven't returned but we are regularly seeing goldfinches on all four ports of the seed feeder. I am having to top up the sunflower seeds every few days now. We are also seeing chaffinches and all the usual tits, blue, great, long tailed and coal. There was also a starling on the fat ball holder today but these aren't going down at anything like the speed of the seeds. I won't fill the other fat feeders for a little while yet. At ground level we have the usual selection, dunnock, robin, blackbird and wood pigeon but the pigeons don't seem to be frequent visitors as the ground feeder isn't being cleared yet. It took several days for a spillage of sunflower seeds to be cleared, I don't know if it was birds, field mice or badgers that were responsible. I was out and about in east London last weekend. Parakeets were very obvious in Hackney, I heard them from inside the car in Victoria Park Road (yes they are that loud) and saw them over Broadway M...

Yesterday we had a good range of tits on the feeders with blues, greats and at least one coal. What was striking was the total lack of finches of any sort. This was rectified today with two cock bullfinches and a chaffinch in the garden at the same time. Food that had been untouched on the ground feeder vanished overnight so I will try and remember to set a camera trap tonight.

In the week since the last post there has been minimal activity in the garden, just a couple of visits by a single blue tit or robin. Things are looking up this morning though. The garden is still pretty quiet but in a couple of minutes watching after breakfast there were a pair of blue tits squabbling over the feeders. A robin also paid a visit and a goldfinch perched for a minute at the bottom of the garden but didn't come to the feeder. There were then several visits by a coal tit who took each sunflower seed away to a tree at the other side of the garden next door to eat it. While tits will normally eat fat based products while perched on the feeder they seldom eat sunflower seeds in situ . When they are around in numbers they seldom go beyond the nearest bush to the feeder but singletons tend to go further away.