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.

 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.

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.

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 ...

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 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...

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.

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...

October and November are always quiet in my garden. I hve had some fat balls out for some time now (see previous post) and since seeing a couple of visits by a robin and one by a blue tit I added a seed feeer with a handful of sunflower seeds. Today I had a brief visit by a mixed flock of blue and long tailed tits. they didn't stay long but at least put some visible peck marks on the fat feeder. Hopefully, now that they know that there is food here they will be back soon. I have also fulled the seed feeder but it is usually the finches that get through these in quantity.

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.

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.

With a little remodelling of my garden in mind I marked out the planned paths with chipped bark. This proved to be a mistake as the badgers spend a fair bit of time scraping it out of the way to find food underneath. I have found chips scattered widely across the garden and the camera trap has verified my suspicians about the culprits. The badgers seem to visit on most nights, last night the camera revealed two separate visits, one by a pair. Seeing the route that they take into the garden has also proved my suspician that they are responsible for the gap in one of my fences. At different times of night various cats also explore the garden. I have one confrontation recorded, I am glad to say that it didn't wake me up, and do wonder if I will get to record any interaction between the cats and other wildlife. On the birding side everything has settled down. A wren seems to be active in the front garden and a pair of long tailed tits must be nesting nearby as they are regulars on th...

I think that we must have both nuthatches and long tailed tits nesting close by as well as the bullfinches and all the regulars. Nuthatches are normally very occasional visitors to the garden but I have been seeing one regularly including two separate sightings today. In the front garden I have regularly seen a pair of long tailed tits. If I stand still they are happy to carry on feeding on the fat bar. The recent high winds have done some damage to the feeder. The sail like effect of the squirrel baffle has bent one of the joints in the feeder pole. The new pole is a screw fitting so I can't canibalise a section of the old pole. I was looking at a spring loaded sleeve for the pole which is supposed to stop a squirrel climbing it although considering the height to which they can jump I am not sure of how well they will work.

Not a rarity but a newcomer to my garden today was a pied wagtail. It landed on the feeder before dropping down to the lawn. On the other hand a robin seems to have taken to sunflower seeds and, with some difficulty, flutters onto a feeder perch to grab one or two seeds before flying off. This is despite there being spillage available on the ground which attracts the chaffinches. I have bought a longer feeder pole which, so far, seems to have defeated the squirrels. An advantage of the height is that I can see the feeders while seated in my armchair rather than standing at the window, with the risk of disturbing the birds. The garden is busy for much of the day now with goldfinches and blue and great tits flocking to the feeders together with random visits by long tailed tits although starling numbers are way down. At ground level in the past few days we have had bullfinch, chaffinch, dunnock, blackbird  and robin. Our resident wren has either moved on or failed to survive the ...

I decided to see how many different species come to the garden on a typical winter day. The total came to eleven: blackbird blue tit bullfinch chaffinch dunnock goldfinch great tit long tailed tit robin starling wood pigeon The squirrel managed to crack the baffle with an impressive leap from a bush at the side of the garden. I trimmed back the branches, which I had been meaning to do in better weather anyway, and his follow up attempt resulted in an equally impressive tumble as the baffole tipped him off as intended. I don't know if the next act was chance or design but I caught him making several leaps at the baffle from ground level gradually pulling it down a little. The next leap from the bush meant that he just managed to reach the the central pole. I have how tightened the fastenings and we will have to see if that is sufficient. The bushes will also get some additional trimming in better weather. ...

Activity has picked up a lot over the Christmas period. Suddenly the blue tits are out in force. A group will perch on a bush and one after the other will make the short dash to the feeder, grab a sunflower seed and return to the bush. The goldfinches and starlings dominate the feeders but we have also had brief visits from greenfinch, chaffinch, great tits and long tailed tits. Robins, blackbirds and dunnocks are regulars on the lawn and flowerbeds although the wrens haven't been seen for a little while.

High summer and early autumn is always a quiet time for birds in my garden. I no longer feed after my summer holiday as I have ended up throwing away far to much mouldy fat or seed. Normally I would wait until November before putting the feeders back out but a party of long tailed tits appeared in the front garden today so I think that it might be worth while trying a single fat bar for the moment. For the past couple of weeks I have seen a lot of roadside signs saying "beware of deer" in places where I wouldn't normally see them. Last weekend I decided that they might be justified when I encountered a herd of roe deer in the road between Ley Hill and Latimer. While muntjac are seen often enough the roes tend to be shy and this was only the third time that I have had a good look at some in all the years that I have lived here.

With the hot weather at the weekend a walk among the bluebells was thought a good idea. With a perfectly still warm day the scent of the flowers hung in the air and in the Chilterns the flowers were still at their best. The following day we went to College Lake near Tring. I hadn't been to this reserve for the best part of two decades. When I first visited it was just a hole in the chalk full of water with a few coot swimming around. Now it is landscaped and well populated although the layout makes the whole thing feel staged at times. In the hot weather on Sunday light and heat was reflecting off the chalk and made walking in some parts quite uncomfortable. In the shady parts there were some nice displays of dog violets. Islands created in the lake had attracted a lot of breeding water birds. Terns were very much in evidence, a marked contrast to Fishers Green where the black headed gulls seemed to be monopolising the tern rafts. We also saw oystercatcher, redshank and lapwing...

I was entertained this morning by a robin taking fat from the feeder in the front garden. He wasn't too happy trying to perch and ended up hovering like a rather ungainly hummingbird to feed from the side of the block. He was also rather agressive with the tits and chased a coal tit off the feeder. First thing this morning I saw a great spotted woodpecker on the feeder who was quickly replaced by a flock of long tailed tits. Naturally they flew away when I fetched the camera only to return when I got on with making breakfast.