Chiltern Birder

The heavy frosts before Christmas brought a lot of birds into the garden but mostly more of the same. A few stray house sparrows appeared from time to time and a solitary long tailed tit made a single visit to the fat feeder. On Christmas Eve a walk down Bottom Lane was interesting. About a quarter mile from the nearest house there were some bullfinches in the hedgerow. The first that I have seen locally, while a red kite spent a lot of time overhead. I don't know what is happening about the crazy idea of redesignating the cluster of bridleways between Botley and Waterside as "byways open to all traffic", I just hope it has died the death it deserves. Boxing Day gave a brief glimpse of a blackcap on the lilac in the garden but the movement as I reached for the bins to get a better look frightened it off. The statutory family visit that afternoon gave a nice view of a buzzard along the M10

I had to make a trip to Stoke Mandeville Hospital this morning. In slightly misty conditions there was only one red kite to be seen, just on the Aylesbury side of Wendover. At the hospital itself there were redwings on the grass just outside the room I was in, with one being very close giving a superb view of the plumage. I haven't seen any around the village for a few years, I don't know if this is due to the birds being absent or my being absent at key times. In the garden the pair of collared doves finally returned after a prolonged absense. They make a nice change from the wood pigeons, as long as they keep quiet. The pinhead oatmeal in the ground hopper is proving popular with a song thrush who has returned to the garden several times. Normally it is quite unusual to see a thrush in the garden. There were only two robins around today but they kept up a fascinating dance around the feeders. The dominant bird (clearly brighter red plumage) would visit the feeder while the ot...

With some cold dry weather there has been a lot of activity on the feeders this weekend. With three different robins visiting the garden there have been fewer fights than I would have expected. The sight of the weekend has been a robin regularly visiting the starling feeder with a pair of beady eyes peeping over the top of the fat bar. As I had run out of sunflower hearts I topped up the ground hopper with pinhead oatmeal which seems to have been very popular. I even had a song thrush inside the cage which is a first. Althogther the weekend has included goldfinches, chaffinches, great tits, blue tits, coal tits, marsh/willow tit (I must learn how to distinguish those), blackbird, song thrush, robin, dunnock and wood pigeon. Unusually for this area a heron also flew across the garden during the day. I haven't seen any long tailed tits or greenfinches around here for a while and there wasn't a single house sparrow around during the weekend.

A business trip to Oxford today showed just how commonplace the red kite has become. I am not complaining but I saw pairs at Chesham, Askett, Longwick, Thame and the Oxford Services. The clear weather meant that in several cases the colouring of the plumage was distinctly visible. After last years dry autumn it was good to see the water meadows around Thame flooded this year. Even nicer was a flock of lapwings in a field just above the water level. The trip meant that I had an opportunity to see my garden feeders in daylight. While having breakfast I saw chaffinch, blue tit, great tit and coal tit. That made me think it was time to expand the feeding and now have one seed feeder, one fat bar and seed on the ground tray.

I decided that it was time to start feeding seriously again and filled the main seed feeder with high energy mix and put a scoop of "blackbird mix" on the ground tray. The dunnock that was in the garden at the time showed a singular lack of interest. Later I heard the sound of a wood pigeon taking to the air and had a look out of the window. A pigeon was feeding from the ground tray and a starling was on the feeder. Within the next few minutes the feeder was visited by a pair of marsh or willow tits (too difficult to tell apart in the rather poor light this afternoon), a great tit and a blue tit. Altogether an encouraging start for the season.

October is probably the quietest month for garden feeding. It seems a little busier than previous years, I put out a small amount of food in one feeder and it vanished in a week. I have filled one seed feeder now and food is being taken. With the lighter mornings now the clocks have gone back I have noticed a robin and a great tit but the garden is still generally quiet. When this batch of food is taken I will put out another feeder as well. I haven't had any real birding opportunities this month and neither have I seen much while travelling around. A brief glimpse of a large bird of prey on the M25 (probably a buzzard) and another even more briefly glimpsed near Leighton Buzzard (possibly a kite). The one nice sighting a couple of weeks ago was a pair of lapwing flying across the road on the flat land just on the Hemel side of the Leighton Buzzard by pass.

With the days getting shorter it is only getting dark as I come home and only just light in the mornings. I was was just thinking this morning that I would probably start seeing muntjac in the dark when one walked slowly out in front of the car. The real surpise was that I hadn't actually left the village at that point. Although I have had damage in my garden this is the first that I have actually seen among the houses. With the numbers around Chesham this year red kites hardly seem worth mentioning but I did see one being mobbed yesterday. By a trick of the rather poor early morning light they seemed quite close and giving the impression of a single blackbird or starling doing the attacking but, knowing the size of a kite, I assume it was a crow.