Chiltern Birder

I managed a trip to the Lee Valley Country Park yesterday. Not an intensive birding session, just a gentle stroll with the bins around the northern end of Forty Acres, Holyfield and back down alongside the Flood Relief Channel. Works to reprofile the islands and remove scrub meant that I saw flocks of lapwings in Forty Acres, something I have missed for the last few years. Somebody with a scope mentioned snipe as well. On the lake were a pretty standard collection of water fowl, but then unless you see a bittern or rail in the reeds that lake is normally quite predictable. Up at Holyfield I was surprised not to see any goosander, which are normally present at this time of year, and hoped in vain for smew. I did see a party of ruddy duck, a mature drake, a juvenile and a female. The high point was seeing a grebe take a fish. Of course he kept his back to use while I was trying to photograph him with the fish in his beak. Surprisingly there was not a single gull perched on the boom at Ho...

The first snow of the winter came today. Not too bad up here but the need to earn a living meant that I had left the house before the birds were about. I did see a very handsome fox sheltering under a bush as the train was entering Rickmansworth though. With recent storms the Chess was finally well filled when I drove through Waterside last Sunday. It will be interesting to see for how long the flow is maintained through the spring and summer.

I had to pay a visit to my company's Chesham branch to day so, after the heavy rain over the bank holiday weekend I spent a little of my lunch hour checking out the state of the River Chess. Due to flash flooding a number of local premises had been sandbagged but under the Town Bridge the river had a flow that would have once been more appropriate to high summer. Finally there is water flowing in the river above Wright's Meadow. I won't feel that the river has recovered, however, until I see a grey wagtail in it again.

The water table has finally risen enough to feed a small spring by the Water Meadow car park in Chesham which means that there is now a small stream flowing in the river bed under the town bridge. Not enough to bring fish back to that part of the river. The garden is more active with birds, starlings are now visiting regularly and sparrows come into the bushes. A cock blackbird has taken up residence and the wood pidgeons are coming to the ground feeder as well. There don't seem to be as many greenfinches as normal yet but siskins are nowhere near as uncommon as in previous years. Unfortunately pair of wrens that were visting regularly either didn't survive the hard frosts just before Christmas or have moved elsewhere.

I now have all the feeders filled. One nyjer seed, one no mess mixture, one sunflower seed, two fat bars, ground hopper with sunflower hearts and ground tray with mixed feed and fat. Now getting blue and great tits, goldfinches and chaffinches, robins, dunnocks and blackbird on the ground. At least one coal tit is visiting regularly. Sparrows, greenfinches, siskins and wood pidgeons are visiting but rarely. I have yet to see any starlings in the garden, which means that there has been little consumption of the fat bars so far. I am rather dissapointed with the "high energy - no mess" mix in the feeder, it is going down slowly and the tits seem to prefer the whole sunflowers in the small hanging feeder or the hearts in the ground hopper. I may need to reconsider what to feed here. Around the area the red kites are in evidence again, during the last few days I saw one between Chesham and Great Missenden and another, perched on a solitary tree, between Ley Hill and Latimer. Afte...

I am now using three seed feeders, the two large ones have nyjer seed and a high energy - no mess mix. The small feeder takes my remaining stock of while sunflower seeds which will not be replaced when finished. The ground feeder tray has a fat bar and a specialist ground blend while the feeder hopper has sunflower hearts with a little oatmeal mixed in. The hanging fat feeder has a peanut cake mix with insects and the other fat feeder is still empty. Apart from starlings and sparrows the birds are now back in force. Blue and great tits are in evidence in large numbersand I am also getting the occasional coal tit. On the ground, as well as the usual dunnocks and robins I am seeing wrens and a pair of blackbirds. Chaffinches and goldfinches are also frequent with greenfinches a little less common. So far I have yet to see wrens or blackbirds anywhere near the ground feeders but that will come. The hanging fat bar has not been touched yet although it usually takes a few days for the bird...

Despite the recent heavy rain the state of our chalk streams does not seem to be improving. Yesterday there was still no water flowing under Chesham Town Bridge. Walking into the town from the Water Meadow (rather a joke considering my previous comment) car park I was delighted to see a kite flying over the woods opposite. It flew up the valley and then swung across Newtown and out of site behind the buildings. That is the first red kite that I have seen since spring or early summer.