28th October..... Winter Visitors movin' in.

As usual Jays are becoming a lot more visible this time of year and a regular sight in the garden stashing food in various places ready for harder times to come. Also Pheasants are beginning to come in looking for food underneath the feeders and good to see Greenfinches have found the sunflower seed. A fine male feeding while a juvenile looks on. A large party of  Long Tailed Tits passes through the garden at dusk most evenings now. Goldfinches still feeding at Liberty’s Nature Reserve this afternoon in the wild flower area and another group feeding on

Hawthorn Berries with around 20 Fieldfares and a few Redwings in a near-by hedgerow.

Found an unusual fungi on Tuesday, a variety of Boletus I think after trying to look it up.

Stewart.

All images Copyright : Stewart Dennis.

21st - 27th October.

21st a bit of Vizmiging over the local fields between 8-30 & 10-00am produced 385 Wood Pigeons heading west, 119 Redwings heading northwest, 73 Starlings west, 6 Sky Larks northeast, 2 Pied Wagtails, Meadow Pipit, 3 Chaffinch & a Lesser Black-backed Gull. Badgers visited yet again.
22nd never seen a Fieldfare in the garden during October 'til today, when one was at the pond accompanied by a lone Redwing, presumably travelling companions. A Red admiral soaking in the rays on the Oak, been very few here this summer. Mistle Thrush over. A Kestrel constantly harassed by 2 Magpies in nearby hedgerow. Two small flocks of Chaffinches searching the leaf litter in local woods.

27th encountered my first SNOW of the season on the Welsh Borders.

14th - 20th October

14th
15th heard what I thought to be a Buzzard "mewing" close to the house early morning, which seemed a bit odd, so went to check it out & it in turned out to be a Jay, which I'd never come across calling like that before. Dead Badger at Swan Bottom. 15 Mallard grazing in meadow. Mistle Thrush over. Farmer blocks access entrance to HS2 works at Great Missenden, due to compensation payment not forth coming.
16th "warbling" Tawny Owl again this evening & 3 Bats hunting at dusk.
17th 60 Goldfinch at Hunts Green (Stewart). Sky Lark over Swan Bottom. Tawny Owl spent the last few days shut in a room in a nearby house after apparently falling down the chimney.
18th Raven at Ley Hill. Flock of c20 Redwings early morning.
19th c30 Redwings still around.
20th flocks of 8 & 22 Fieldfares flew through heading north west, 12 Chaffinch, 2 Mistle Thrush & a very ragged Speckled Wood. 2 Jays.

20th October..... Strawberry Hill.

A short walk this morning along Strawberry Hill, passing Liberty’s Nature Reserve saw a flock of around 30 Goldfinches busily feeding. Further on came across a few Shaggy Parasol fungi at various stages of their development. Walking back past the Reserve no sign of the Goldfinches but a flock of maybe 20 Fieldfares passed overhead.

Stewart.

 Both images Copyright : Stewart Dennis.

18th October..... Pied Wagtails.

Wednesday morning crossed the border again and went to Wilstone Reservoir. Water level is getting low and didn’t see anything of note on way to hide. Passed some interesting fungi but can’t identify it. Walked on to Marsworth Reservoir along the dry canal which is slowly getting restored and will eventually join Wendover to the Grand Union at Bulbourne. Went there to see if the Great White Egret was around but didn’t see it. On the way back tried to see the Spotted Crake at Wilstone at cemetery corner but again no joy. Did see these smart Pied Wagtails. A male and juvenile getting into their winter plumage. Stewart. 

All images Copyright : Stewart Dennis.

Reflections

All images Copyright : Don Stone.

7th - 13th October.

7th went & "twitched" the Spotted Crake at Wilstone Reservoir this morning where I saw my first 3 Redwings of the Autumn. During the afternoon as I chopped up logs in the garden; Summer & Winter meet as 9 Redwings arrived (2 days earlier than last year) as a migrant Chiffchaff passed through; while a Speckled Wood enjoyed the suns rays, stretched out on some Birch leaves; also a Great Spotted Woodpecker & the  "warbling" Tawny Owl responding to another nearby.
8th pair of Ravens on patrol, a fair few Finches over this morning. Cormorant at Latimer. Great Tit on window sill, part of a large Tit flock in the garden again.
9th 2 Redwings early morning & more flying from hedge at nearby farm this evening.
10th Pied Wagtail over & a band of 8 noisy Long Tailed Tits passing through, 3 Buzzards over together, surprised to see a Brimstone in the garden. Great Spotted Woodpecker at Latimer. Did the annual job of  covering the House Martin's nests for the winter, protecting them from roosting Wrens which usually destroy them by the following Spring. The Martins had a bad breeding season this Summer only raising single broods from 5 nests; leaving 3 vacant, on a brighter note they did breed successfully on a nearby property. Nearby Swallows didn't fair any better with a single paiir only managing 1 brood, last year 5 pairs bred.
11th Mistle Thrush, 5 Chaffinch.
12th
13th strong winds bring down Barn Owl nest site. 3 Redwings looking to roost nearby this evening. Sky Lark over.

10th October ..... Stonechats.

Tried to make the most of Wednesday’s beautiful weather. My wife and I set of for Pitstone Hill at 9.30 missing the worst of the traffic. Lots of Sky Larks present, numbers building with birds from the continent. Kites low over most of the morning as well as Kestrels. One perched up quite close for a few minutes. Highlight of the walk was watching around 10 Stonechats moving through the scrub for maybe 5 minutes. Lunch close by at BBONT College Lake in the café overlooking the lake. Then a slow walk around the lake. Not many birds about only lots of Canada Geese, but the autumnal colours more than made up for that. Dragonflies, Damselflies and Darters still active and did see one Clouded Yellow butterfly briefly here and one Brimstone butterfly at Pitstone.

Stewart.

 All images Copyright : Stewart Dennis.

Burnin' Skies.

As I took these images there were 22 vapour trails above my head. Governments are taking measures to ease Air Pollution at ground level, but there's clearly a problem at higher level. With increased capacity planned at nearby Luton & another runway at Heathrow the Climate Change problem won't improve rapidly.

7th October..... Redwings arrive.

At lunch time a Long Tailed Tit dined on the Fennel. This afternoon at 5ish in a field behind us I came across a flock of 40+ linnets and 30+ redwings which were feeding in the stubble and hedgerow before I arrived and disturbed them, but they quickly moved away and settled again.

Stewart.

Images Copyright : Stewart Dennis.

30th September - 6th October.

30th at least 138 Lapwings in cultivated field at Aston Clinton. 14 Pied Wagtails, 20 Linnets, a few Goldfinches & Meadow Pipits, with 2 Ravens over Halton Airfield. 6 Hornets feeding on the Ivy flowers in the garden as I picked all the reachable Apples, which have cropped well this Autumn, as have the Conkers, presumably due to the hot summer.
1st Tawny Owl hootin' just before daylight; an hour later it was trying to settle down for the day, but the constant clammer of the various garden birds drove it from tree to tree, but was later heard around midday giving a couple of hoots. Marsh Tit. Dead Badger on the road at Lee Common, sad to see the trail of blood it had left on the road as it crawled along after the collision.
2nd Grey Wagtail over & female Blackcap calling from garden on several occasions during the day.
3rd first Sky Lark of the Autumn, over heading south, as was a Meadow Pipit, Marsh Tit in ours & neighbouring garden, Sprawky bathing in the pond for 10 minutes. Tawny Owl roosting in neighbours garden today, from where it called. It's good working for the neighbours, if I hadn't been here for the last few days I would have missed all of the above; off to the delights of Latimer tomorrow.

 At least 12 Blue Tits taking it in turns to enter a neighbours nesting box this morning, no doubt feeding on the insects within.

4th
5th pair of Tawnies chatting in the garden at daybreak; later at dusk presumably the same pair were calling in neighbouring garden, while in ours another gave that strange warbling call. Ring Necked Parakeets squawking at Latimer.
6th after parting company with their manager on Monday, Chesham United finally win a league game at the ninth attempt 0-1.

All images Copyright : Sarah Dubus.

5th October..... Wren.

This afternoon in the garden watched this Wren for five minutes drying itself off. It kept fluffing itself  up, stretching, shuffling about and eventually flew off.

All images Copyright : Stewart Dennis.

3rd October..... Mr Toad.

 .... or maybe it is Mrs Toad. Found one of my favourite child hood fictional characters taking a stroll in the garden this morning.

All images Copyright : Don Stone.

Peregrine Falcons in Aylesbury.

Many thanks to Mike Wallen for producing the following article & for the use of his photographs.

Until 2007 there had not been a recent record (probably at least 70 years) of Peregrines in Bucks in the summer months, then a young male took up residence on County Hall in Aylesbury. Over the next few years more Peregrines were seen and over the course of 1 winter 5 different birds were seen on County Hall.

By 2010 a purpose built platform had been built and installed on the top floor of county hall, located on the south-east corner of the building- this is very visible from the town below.

Between then and 2018 Peregrines have utilized this platform and bred on it with varying success, sometimes with just one chick, the maximum being 3.

Fledging is fraught with dangers and more than once Peregrines have been rescued from the streets below, or nearby gardens.

Camera's have been installed near the platform providing a fascinating, and sometimes very gory insight into the breeding of these spectacular birds.

Incredible to think that a species that was probably extinct in the south-east of England as a breeding species is now very much at home in many of our towns and cities.

To be able to be in the middle of Aylesbury and witness the worlds fastest animal just above your head is truly remarkable and exhilarating.

All images Copyright : Mike Wallen.

Here's a little bit of video footage I took back in 2012; best played at full volume to here the birds calling  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-6vCfJnkKU
Don.

Water Voles on the Chess.

We have some really great news regarding our local water vole population. Our volunteers and landowners continue to check mink rafts for any evidence of mink in the valley (predatory mink are a huge threat to our water vole population).  While riverfly monitoring at a site on the outskirts of Chesham, one of our volunteers checked a mink raft and found lots of water vole footprints on the clay. This is the first time that we have seen water vole signs here since the survey of 2013.  Clearly the water voles are continuing to expand their range upstream. This is a great vindication for everybody’s continued efforts to provide good water vole habitat and protect them from predation. We are excited to see what the 2019 survey will tell us.

http://www.riverchessassociation.co.uk/ 

 Thames WaterBlitz
 

Registration is now open for the 19 ^th and 20 ^th October Thames Water Blitz. Please follow the steps on this   video to register for the next event and request your free Freshwater Watch kit. For the first time, we are running a two day WaterBlitz which coincides with the start of half-term for the majority of schools. We hope this will be a good opportunity for schools and families to join in with freshwater research.

 

This WaterBlitz will be the seventh such event  and it is timed to coincide with the regular Thames sample run undertaken by the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) as part of a long-term monitoring programme of the Thames and its tributaries. Along with data collected by CEH and data held by the Environment Agency continued Thames WaterBlitz efforts complement monitoring by providing information from areas and water body types that would otherwise not be monitored. This could be a particularly interesting WaterBlitz given the UK heatwave this summer.  Click here to read what Dr Steven Loiselle has to say about the UK water crisis and the importance of water monitoring. WaterBlitzes are also a fun learning experience for any volunteer that is interested in their local environment, and would like to learn more about water quality. 

 

As well as asking you to take part, I wondered if you might be able to promote this event through your network of friends and colleagues by asking you to forward this link (  https://ewgis.org/waterblitz-registration/ ) or using the attached pdf.

 

Also, if you are interest in seeing the data collected during previous WaterBlitz Events and getting to know more about your local freshwater environment, please visit the Freshwater Links platform:  https://freshwaterlinks.org , here you will be able to see the WaterBlitz Results Map as well as extra information and data related to freshwater environments within the Thames Catchment.

 

Please feel free to email us at  water@earthwatch.org.uk if you have any further questions.

23rd - 29th September.

23rd Sprawky bathing in pond.
24th 2 Meadow Pipits heading west over Chesham where a Nuthatch flew into St Marys Church yard; 2 Buzzards soaring above the town. Chiffchaff calling in the garden this evening.
25th Pied Wagtail & 2 Meadow Pipits over early morning. Looks like there may have been a frost overnight if the glistening fields are anything to go by.
26th Badgers still visiting; Grey Wagtail commuting between the river Chess & Lowndes Park, several times during the course of the day.
27th
28th garden pond very busy with birds bathing, Meadow Pipit over. Joe Strummer 001 double CD released today; apologies for publicizing, but he's still an inspiration.R.I.P.
29th Badgers again & another frost. 4 Stonechats making their annual passage visit to Hunts Green; also 12 Goldfinches, Meadow Pipit & Sky Lark with many Lesser Black Backed Gulls in distant field. 3 Hornets drinking from garden pond in the afternoon.

Copyright : Don Stone.

27th September..... Grey's Farm, Therfield.

Along with Stewart I visited Grey’s Farm at Therfield, Hertfordshire, a crackin’ example of how farming & wildlife can co-exist hand in hand; although intensively farmed with massive machines, there’s established hedges of all shapes & sizes, along with new hedging & trees; plenty of wild field margins approx 4m in width, plus game cover, with larger areas of set a side; all combining well to attract an abundance of wildlife.

The main purpose of the trip being to see the Pallid Harrier first seen here on 18^th September; pulling in “Twitchers” from far & wide; we arrived just after 11am, but “Dipped” missing it by 20 minutes…… How ever there was plenty to see  the usual Buzzards, Kites, 4 Kestrels, a distant Peregrine, c20 Yellow Hammers, Skylarks, c80 Meadow Pipits, c30 distant Lapwings, 1 lone Swallow went through, a Wheatear popped up just in front of us, & on the butterfly front a Clouded  Yellow.

 All images Copyright : Don Stone/Stewart Dennis.