Chiltern Birder

Not much to say except that I saw a polecat last night, the third occasion in my life. Driving home up the hill from Boxmoor to Bovingdon around midnight a mustelid ran across the road in front of me. It was dark but the glimpse that I had of the face was that of a polecat or polecat-ferret.

With the warmest day of the year so far and magnificent displays of bluebells locally I decided that a walk in the woods with the camera was called for. The abandonment of traditional hedge laying allows these wonderful sculptural forms to develop over the years   To get back to birding I was also lucky to see a hobby fly across the path of the car and perch on a nearby power cable. The swift like silhouette was quite unmistakable. In the garden the wrens do seem to be in residence in the bat box, as I was standing close to it one went past my left ear at speed to perch in the rowan tree.

I had a rather nice suprise this morning, before breakfast I glanced out the living room window just in time to see a blackcap on the feeder. This is the first that I have seen in the garden for three years. Wrens have been active in both the front and back gardens and one was singing in the front as I prepared breakfast. Last week thy seemed to be active around the bat box but I am not sure at the moment if they have actually nested there.

A distressing aspect of driving in this area is the number of dead badgers by the road side. It was refreshing therefore to see a live one on Saturday night. It was about midnight going up Frith Hill from Missenden towards Chesham. Not much activity in the garden, just the usual visitors. With the mild winter I am not replacing foods as they run out and the goldfinches and squirrel have cleaned out the sunflower hearts already.

It has been quite a few years since I have had greenfinches in the garden but today a trio suddenly appeared on the feeder taking sunflower hearts. Despite having four ports on the feeder the pair feeding would not allow the other anywhere near although as they squabbled they did change places from time to time. Eventually they all suddenly flew off to be replaced by a sollitary goldfinch. When I moved here over 20 years ago I never imagined that greenfinches would be unusual and goldfinches an everyday occurrence. At the front of the house a great spotted woodpecker was on the feeder as I came down to breakfast but flew off as soon as I moved near the window. The great tit who promptly came down wasn't so concerned.

With a brisk clear morning I decided that it was time to get out for a little birding after all the rain so a drive down to Rickmansworth was in order. There seemed to be fewer birds on the lake than I would have expected. Plenty of tufties but only one pair of red crested pochard, no common pochard and one or two wigeon although there were a fair number of great crested grebe. A kingfisher was a welcome extra, presumably preferring the lake to the turbid waters of the Colne which was in full spate. Away from the lake birdsong was becoming far more spring like and a wren and a goldcrest were nice suprises. At home the robins have paired off and I suspect that a wren (or a pair) has settled in the ivy on the side fence. I suspect that it won't be getting the haircut that I had planned to give it a couple of weeks ago if the weather had permitted. The feeders are getting a reasonable amount of activity with goldfinch regular visiters as well as the tits. My stock of fat bars will p...

A visit to Leigh on Sea at the weekend was pleasant. We arrived when the tide was at its lowest ebb and, naturally, there was very little around looking across Leigh Marsh from the car park on the road to Two Tree Island apart from gulls and crows. A solitary redshank was wading in what little water was left in the creek and we could hear a curlew in the distance although we never managed to see it. At Bell Warf things perked up with more redshank and a ringed plover. There is something about that location that the ringed plovers like as I have had more sightings there than anywhere else that I have visited. With over a quarter of century of visits to Leigh it certainly isn't the same individual. After a little sightseeing and our customary plates of roe on toast at The Strand Cafe for lunch the tide was visibly on the flood and more birds were appearing. The only brent geese were in the far distance, visible only with the glasses but there was a cluster of turnstone on a drift...