Chiltern Birder

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...

In recent weeks the garden has been almost devoid of birds. The resident pair of wood pigeons have been munching their way through the fat bars on the starling feeder while a magpie makes occasional attacks on the fat balls on a hanging feeder. Hardly anything has been taking sunflower seeds, so much so that I had to clean out the existing seeds as they had become caked at the bottom. Yesterday, however, a pair of bullfinches appeared and spent some time there. It was striking how faded the cock bird had become, nothing like the vivid brick red of the spring. In the front garden the rowan tree is laden with berries, the branches so heave that I bumped my head on one bunch. It was very noticeable that it had only recently stopped raining! I am sure that the tree will be stripped bare soon enough but if previous years are anything to go by I am unlikely to to see a single bird feeding on it.

The winter has been so mild that the fields near the house which were ploughed at the end of summer are now totally green. Out walking between Christmas and New Year skylarks were singing and there were a host of small brown birds on the fields that kept just too far away to identify. In the garden things are getting a little more interesting with goldfinches and long tailed tits regularly visiting the feeders. Some other birds were managing some interesting contortions including a robin taking sunflower seeds and a blackbird on the fat feeder. On the ground the wood pigeons are taking most of the dried meal worms which at least keeps them off the fat feeders (I did read somewhere that they were vegetarian!). This morning a magpie tried to chase one off the ground feeder but when the pigeon stood its ground and the magpie gave up. Yesterday we had a green woodpecker on the back lawn. This is the first time that I have seen one come into the very enclosed back garden although I do o...

The local magpies have been expressing a lot of interest in the blackbirds' nest and the alarm calls have sent me out into the garden to chase them off on a couple of occasions. I was rewarded for the good deed later with an excellent view of a great spotted woodpecker on the feeder in the front garden. The dunnocks seem to have lost interest in the honeysuckle so I imagine that they found it too close to the back door, and to my potting bench, for a nest. Goldfinches and chaffinches have been regular visitors along with blue and great tits and of course the resident robin. One nice sight last week was a buzzard and a kite in the air together over Botley. With them both circling it was a great opportunity to study the differences in the silhouettes.

Looking back over previous posts this seems to be the normal time to hear a cuckoo in the hills around here. Walking across the field between Broomstick Lane and Cowcroft Wood I could hear one in the direction of Tylers Hill Road. In the woods the bluebells were making a magnificent show but birds could only be heard rather than seen. In the garden we seem to be getting starlings, blue, great and coal tits, blackbirds, robins and dunnocks. Magpies have started coming into the garden and a pair of wood pigeons seem to be resident rather than just visiting.

Between Sunday and Thursday the bluebells have come out. Walking in Cowcroft Wood at the weekend the bluebells were all still green but driving back from Cheinies yesterday there were lovely displays in the woods and verges. I saw several herons along the Chess but no egrets. At home the balance of species at the feeders has changed. A magpie now comes and uses the fat feeder every day while starling numbers are increasing. The blackcap hasn't returned from some time and the long tailed tits seem to have moved on as well. We are still seeing blue and great tits and a coal tit made several visits today. A wood pigeon using the starling feeder was quite amusing while various small brown birds flitting rapidly in and out of shrubs may have been house sparrows.