Chiltern Birder

I looked out into the garden at 9pm and found that the ground tray for the badgers was already empty. On looking at the films there were two separate visits about 45 minutes apart but I can't tell if they were different individuals. He seemed keen to find any spillage too. And later I just hope that they haven't dug up any more of my primroses

I took a trip to Bedford today to visit the Bawden and Burges collections at The Higgins. I didn't want to faff about looking for parking in a strange town so I took advantage of free parking at Milton Keynes Coachway and used my pass on the X5. The view from the coach wasn't inspiring. Mostly of soggy arable fields with hedges trimmed to a uniform low height, presumably so that little Jocasta can safely follow the hunt on her pony. Even less inspiring is the area around Bedford Bus Station, redeveloped in the new town brutalist school. I had almost lost the will to live when I emerged from the Harpur Centre into Harpur Square. It was only when I turned round that I realised that the shopping mall had been built behind the grade 2 listed former Bedford Modern School. As well as being an excellent gallery The Higgins also has an excellent cafe / restaurant. Coming back another belt of bad weather was moving in creating some fascinating cloudscapes. These didn...

We got off very lightly from the storms with one fence developing a bit of a wobble and the squirrel baffle on the bird feeder twisted until the mounting snapped. Our visiting badger seems to have made up for this though after deciding that there was something tasty lurking under my alpine bed. I wouldn't have minded so much if it had just been the weeds that I was going to take out in the next few days anyway but I do begrudge him the primroses. Since the storms there have been very few finches coming to the feeders and the great tits and the nuthatch seem to have moved away too. The blue and long tailed tits are still around in numbers as well as the resident robins and blackbirds. I was getting a bit fed up with uneaten bird food on the ground so I tried moving the feeding point by about three feet. Now the blackbird comes and hoovers up the mealworms and fat pellets. The robin on the other hand has no truck with feeding off the ground and tries to imitate the blu...

I was away from home during the storm so spent Sunday worrying about my garden fence. Coming home on Monday the train was crawling up to the junction after Moor Park when I realised that a parakeet was flying along with us. The weather had turned clear and bright and with the very low relative velocity I could see the bright green plumage clearly. This was definitely the best view that I have yet had of a parakeet, normally I see little more than a silluette, and the first that I have actually seen, rather than just heard, outside of the build up area of London. When I got home the fence was intact although with a disturbing amount of play in one of the posts. The big surprise was that the sunflower heart feeder was missing. I thought that it had just blown off but it was nowhere to be found and I suspect that it had been stolen by a squirrel. I have observed one carrying off a feeder before.

A little trip to the coast today, lovely clear sky, the tide on the way out. Parking at Two Tree Island there were teal roosting on the edge of Leigh Creek. Walking down to the old town there were plenty of redshank as well as the usual collection of gulls and corvids. The tide was receeeding across the flats with a lot of waders following it. Redshank obviously as well as grey plover and turnstone. I only had the lightweight spotting scope so I couldn't see the tideline in detail but it is a good guess that the little black dots were dunlin. Brent geese numbers weren't high but there were plenty to be seen and heard. There was also a curlew somewhere out on the flats, audible but I didn't get a view, I can't get use to seeing egrets at Leigh but there were several around. Little egrets I think but I will have to read up on their id, all of my field guides were published when they were still very rare vagrants.

I was glad to see three bullfinches in the garden today, two males and one female. They all came to the sunflower seed feeder but seemed to spend time foraging in the bushes as well. the goldfinches are also turning out in greater numbers, there were five in the garden at one time today. I don't normally watch the birds from the bedroom window but doing so yesterday solved the missung dunnock mystery. They are active under the bushes at the end of the garden but simply aren't coming nearer the house. I have had to cut back on ground feeding as the softbill food and meal worms simply aren't all been taken. I couldn't put out food on the ground fast enough last year but the difference seems to be that we no longer have a pair of wood pigeons in permanent residence. It was curious to see a robin today ignoring all the food at ground level and taking sunflower seeds instead. At one point we even had two robins in the same bush without a fight. Among the other birds th...

I came in just before noon and looked out of the back window to see a totally undistinguished brownish grey bird, about the size of a great tit, at the bottom of the garden. Without any outstanding markings I couldn't identify it so fetched the binoculars, just in time for it to fly into a bush. With some patient waiting it reappeared and returned to the tree, I found the spot with the glasses just in time for it to fly away. Whatever it was it didn't show any interest in the feeders. In Chesham this morning after heavy rain, and reports of flooding elsewhere in the country, water was actually flowing under the Town Bridge. How much of the rain will actually enter the water table is another matter, on recent performance I don't hold out much hope for the flow outlasting a few dry days. Contrary to expectations we are still not seeing more than one or two goldfinches in the garden those that come are still regulars along with the coal tit and nuthatch. The blue and great...