Chiltern Birder

 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.

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...

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.

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...

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.

There seem to be a few pairs of finches nesting within range of my feeders. We seem to have at least one pair of chaffinches and two of goldfinches visiting regularly at the moment. No doubt the starlings will turn up later in the season. At the moment I only have a couple of fat bars in the house and am not sure if I should be ordering more under the present circumstances. In the woods the bluebells have come out in the last day or two. Great spotted woodpeckers are drumming and I have heard the occasional "yaffle" of a green woodpecker as well. With so little traffic noise birdsong is far clearer and the fact that we are lucky enough to have a good population of skylarks is obvious.

I was glad to see three bullfinches in the garden today, two males and one female. They all came to the sunflower seed feeder but seemed to spend time foraging in the bushes as well. the goldfinches are also turning out in greater numbers, there were five in the garden at one time today. I don't normally watch the birds from the bedroom window but doing so yesterday solved the missung dunnock mystery. They are active under the bushes at the end of the garden but simply aren't coming nearer the house. I have had to cut back on ground feeding as the softbill food and meal worms simply aren't all been taken. I couldn't put out food on the ground fast enough last year but the difference seems to be that we no longer have a pair of wood pigeons in permanent residence. It was curious to see a robin today ignoring all the food at ground level and taking sunflower seeds instead. At one point we even had two robins in the same bush without a fight. Among the other birds th...

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...

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.

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...

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.

With the forsythia and celandines in bloom spring is definitely on the way. There are some clear changes in usage of the garden by the birds. The finches are no longer flocking, while we are still seeing goldfinches and chaffinches these are now singletons or pairs rather than groups. The bullfinches seem to have vanished and the long tailed tits are less frequent visitors. Blue and great tits, dunnock, robins, wood pigeons and blackbirds are all still present in abundance while great spotted woodpeckers are occasional visitors although they are disturbed by the slightest movement inside the house.

After a sudden drop in activity before Christmas things seem to be back to normal now. Both sunflower heart and fat levels are falling rapidly in the feeders again and the flock of goldfinches is back. A pair of bullfinches have been regulars for the last week or two and a nuthatch drops by occasionally. A brief visit to the back garden by a great spotted woodpecker has added to the species count. In the front garden we are seeing far less activity and the fat feeder on the quince tree has only been replenished once this season. I suspect that for some reason we aren't getting the woodpeckers at the front of the houses at the moment as they have been heavy consumers of fat in the past.

The starlings followed the same pattern as the goldfinches. Yesterday there was a solitary bird, today a flock cleaning out the fat feeder. Yesterday the feeders had been covered with long tailed tits while blues and greys have been regulars alongside the goldfinches. When I restarted feeding less than a week ago I was lucky to see the occasional robin or dunnock in the garden and I thought that I might be putting the food out far too early but I have been proved wrong. A couple of the visitors may have been one offs but the full list is: blue tit, great tit, long tailed tit, coal tit, greenfinch, chaffinch, bullfinch, goldfinch, starling, wood pigeon, dunnock, robin, wren. That pretty well accounts for all the usual regular visitors I will have to keep watch for anything more exotic.