Chiltern Birder

With several things that I needed to do coming together I ended up taking a lengthy tour of the country over the last week. One thing that struck me was the lack of kestrels along the roads, they used to be so common along main roads and motorways. Starting from Chesham last Sunday we spent the day in the Cotswolds. Steeple Barton Abbey gardens were open and being one of the first to arrive we were lucky to see a green woodpecker making off for a quieter location. The lake was criss crossed by swallows skimming the surface like tiny exocets. The first buzzard of the trip was seen between Chipping Norton and Burford then turning onto the A40 we saw a red kite above Burford School. Much further west and we might see the Chiltern and Welsh populations merging. On Tuesday I had to drive from Burford to Wensleydale. Buzzards used to be something to see in the wilds of Wales but I kept seeing them along the main roads in locations where I would have expected kestrels. I was suprised to see s...

I have seen birds from the car which I could not positively identify as swallows for several days but walking to the polling station this evening I had my first positive identification. The field next to the Hen and Chickens is used for horses who provide the perfect environment for the swallows' prey. The wild flowers have come on a lot since Easter. Clover, forget me not, speedwell and buttercups were all very obvious on the verges as well as a single field poppy. Returning home I went into the back garden and saw a kite being mobbed by crows. Nothing unusual around here but it is the first time that I have seem one from the back garden. The front garden and hte street outside the house yes, but never from the back before.

My next door neighbour had left some rubbish bags in the bin in his porch. This morning the bin was upended, the bags opened and rubbish scattered around his lawn. I assumed a fox or dog at first but then found a path practically bulldozed through my front flowerbed. Badger damage to a garden is pretty unmistakable. On the birding front I saw a pair of partridges as I was driving into Latimer from Ley Hill last week. Not much in the garden but today a woodpecker was drumming somewhere across the fields and after digging over a bed prior to planting out some seedlings I turned away for a second to find a blackbird collecting worms from the bed. Normally I would expect a robin to be present when digging like this but this time it was the blackbird.

With the fine weather and a holiday it seemed a good idea to take advantage of the fact that I live in some very beautiful countryside. A walk in the Ley Hill area took me up Broomstick Lane, where escaped cultivated bluebells were mixing with the wild. Then into Cowcroft Wood where a substantial badger set seems to have had somebody digging. (I won't add my thoughts on that as Blogspot has rules about bad language). Although birds were audible there was nothing to be seen and the walk continued out onto Ley Hill Common and along the side of the golf course towards the community wood, now named Crabtree Plantation. One tree had several hollow sections where branches had fallen and a nuthatch was taking advantage of the previous night's rain to plaster mud around one of these. Its mate was on the next branch. A little nearer the road was a recently discarded pair of bright red knickers, I did wonder if the cloudburst had cooled somebody's ardour rather precipitately. In the ...

Leaving the house yesterday morning I was suprised to see not red kites circling overhead but two buzzards. I do see them occasionally in my part of the chilterns but not with any regularity. Just to retain a semblence of normality however, barely more than a dot in clear sky there was also what was obviously a kite. Its curious how you learn to identify birds, it was definitely too far away to even pick out the forked tail but the whole "feel" of the bird was unmistakable.

As illness had prevented me from taking a holiday last summer, and as I had to use up some leave before the end of the financial year I took a few days down on the South Coast starting with a visit to Dungeness. The most obvious attraction is of course the Romney Hythe and Dymchurch Railway but that is only one aspect of this remarkable ecosystem. From a birding point of vie w there was a lot of interest. Without making any effort I quickly saw black redstarts and wheatears. I didn't have time for serious birding and didn't manage to see the serin that I was told was around. The shingle landscape and the architecture are both fascinating. Look closely at the right hand hut in the photo, the central section is clearly an old railway carriage. The power station dominates of course, show here behind the formeer Trinity House experimental station. The Corporation of Trinity House of Deptford Strond, to give them their full title has a long association with Dungeness with two lighth...

With longer days I am now starting to see things while travelling too and from work. A yellowhammer perched on a phone line, primroses out beside the railway with a muntjac feeding, an egret flying up the Chess valley at Latimer and always the red kites. At home the quince trees are in bud while the forsythia will be over soon and the dogwood will need pruning. Visiting my mother's house I saw a long tailed tit in the next street. Unremarkable except in my childhood we saw nothing except sparrows and starlings. My first bird book was the collected set of british birds cards from packets of PG tips.