Chiltern Birder

I decided that I needed to get back to some moorland walking and spend yesterday in South Wales at the edge of the Brecon Beacons. Parking at the Keepers Pond car park in the Blaenavon World Heritage site I headed off onto The Blorenge. Much of the mountain is heather moorland which makes for very difficult walking but I picked up the route of an old tramway leading to a limestone quarry near the summit. The walking was usually easier than in the photo where the top layer of small pebbles has been washed away where it crosses a small stream. As far as birding is concerned it wasn't hugely rewarding, there are red grouse on the mountain but in a number of visits I have never seen one. Skylarks were abundant on this part of the mountain as were meadow pipits. The stonechats seem to prefer perching on the wires of the powerline that serves the TV transmitter mast to the south of my walk but I did get good views of two individuals. What did seem incongruous was a couple of cock b...

We don't see swifts locally but I heard my first of the year a week ago at Much Hadham in Hertfordshire. The following Monday a trip to Haddenham in Oxfordshire revealed some more. That village still seems to have a good population of house sparrows as well. A bee identification chart in a free paper last weekend had me looking at our buzzing friends visiting the flowers. The garden is getting a fine selection and I could count three species just standing still and looking at one point in a flower bed for a few seconds. I found one immediate identification issue, in real life the bees mostly have the abdomen curved making it quite difficult to count the bands. I have picked out both garden and tree bumblebees though. After the bank holiday I noticed that the grass was growing over both regular badger tracks so I reset the camera trap which showed that nothing had been past during the hours of darkness. Something had been at the bottom of the garden, out of range of the camera, ...

The first of the year was last Sunday (7 May) when I heard one to the east of the house in the morning and to the west in the afternoon. Naturally I haven't heard one since. Otherwise bird activity in the garden is now light with goldfinches and bullfinches the most regular visitors. The breast feathers on the cock bullfinches are now very faded but the black crown stays glossy. While driving yesterday I had a brief glimpse of what may have been my first house martin or first swallow of the year. On a winding country road I really couldn't risk turning my head to actual look straight at it to get a firm identification. In the garden the badgers have been very active and there seem to be at least two individuals visiting. A few days ago I went to aerate the compost heap and found a bumble bee nest inside it. This morning I went into the garden and found the lid right off and a hole dug into the compost. Judging by the flattened grass nearby I looks likely that one of the ba...

I thought that we had a solitary pair of bullfinches coming into the garden until today. This afternoon we had a pair of cock birds in the garden plus one hen. Having been watching these birds regularly it was clear that the red breasts were fading slightly and they had a very slight hint of orange rather than the very pure brick red of earlier in the season. One suprise in the front garden last week was a solitary cock sparrow. I can never really get used to the fact that a species that was the most common in my childhood garden is so rare here. Out and about the bluebells are just coming out and a few walks in the woods will be in order in the next couple of weeks. While driving towards Latimer a pair of red legged partridges posed in a field entrance allowing me to stop and give my passenger a good view. Back in the garden there were a couple of holes in the vegetable bed that were clearly caused by a badger. Luckily away from the seedlings that I planted out last week. The occa...

Yesterday I took advantage of an overcast morning to visit the College Lake reserve near Tring. The advantage of the cloud cover is the lack of reflected sunlight on the water so you can actually see the birds rather than just silhouettes. There were good displays of primroses around the edges of the paths but the most spectacular feature was the acrobatic display flights by the lapwings. There are quite a few pairs nesting on the islands so there were usually several birds in the air at the same time. There was the usual collection of waterfowl with shoveller, gadwall, tufties, mallard, coot, mute swans and both Candada and greylag geese. Remarkably well camoflaged on the shingle were some redshank, I could hear them but it was only when one took flight that I could find them and even then once I took my bins off the spot I couldn't be sure of finding them again. At home the badgers are still visiting but catching them on camera is still not as exciting as seeing one in the...

With a little remodelling of my garden in mind I marked out the planned paths with chipped bark. This proved to be a mistake as the badgers spend a fair bit of time scraping it out of the way to find food underneath. I have found chips scattered widely across the garden and the camera trap has verified my suspicians about the culprits. The badgers seem to visit on most nights, last night the camera revealed two separate visits, one by a pair. Seeing the route that they take into the garden has also proved my suspician that they are responsible for the gap in one of my fences. At different times of night various cats also explore the garden. I have one confrontation recorded, I am glad to say that it didn't wake me up, and do wonder if I will get to record any interaction between the cats and other wildlife. On the birding side everything has settled down. A wren seems to be active in the front garden and a pair of long tailed tits must be nesting nearby as they are regulars on th...

I have seen evidence of badgers in both the front and back gardens from time to time but have never had a confirmed sighting until now. After several nights showing wandering domestic cats a clip from the early hours of this morning was much more exciting.   To view the video in Youtube please click here