You don’t need a weatherman To know which way the wind blows

A bright and beautiful looking morning saw me off for a walk along the cliff top and round Bockhill Farm before the important business of watching a bit of cherry picking on the TV.

It may have looked idyllic for a walk but he gusts of wind blowing at about 45-50 mph from the wsw certainly deterred me from getting too close to the cliff edge. Looking inland at the copse known to local birders as the "empty wood" there's no impressing of the strength of the wind.

Although there were quite a few Gulls to be watched, including a stream of Kittiwakes a few hundred yards off shore and a few Fulmars surveying the cliffs the only land bird I saw along the top were Jackdaws, Carrion Crows and a couple of Magpies.

The edge between the agricultural field and the recently reclaimed wild cliff top, that will hopefully return to being some interesting chalk grassland  in years to come, does sometime provide some shelter for small birds,but not to day.

Looking back towards the Walmer  & Kingsdown golf course you can see the 8th hole running up hill from right to left. I've never played the course, but this 497 yard par five looks daunting at the best of times, but in today's conditions it was more like a par 10. I didn't see anyone playing, perhaps common sense had prevailed.

My foot path ran slightly up hill, but directly into the wind every step took some effort, I'm glad I was in no hurry.

Looking across the farm I could see the tops of the trees in my garden,and at that moment I would have relished being there, with the kettle on and a cup of tea as a prospect. 

In one area I was pleased to see the evidence of recent activity by one of my favourite animals, badgers.Badgers have unusual breeding patterns since mating can take place at any time of the year. After mating, badgers exhibit what is known as delayed implantation.

They keep the fertilised eggs, in the womb in a state of suspended development until they implant at the end of December. Cubs are usually born during the first fortnight in February. After this they spend most of the next three months underground. Hopefully later in the summer they will appear in the garden. They are welcome in my garden, although others have greater reservations about them doing the lawn maintenance for them.

Along one side of the Freedown (the open area not the road!) this thick hedge is an important feature, both as a shelter for birds and small mammals and for breeding. Sadly there are fewer and fewer dense hedges around as fields are enlarged.

One of the bids that  often makes use of the hedges is the Long-tailed Tit.

 Not actually a member of the true Titmice family but in a related family, Aegithalidae, which has a total of 13 species, one of which occurs in North America. The rest are mainly Asian, with the Long-tailed Tits as the only one that spreads into Europe.

This is a diminutive bird with a long-tail, but body wise it is smaller than a Blue Tit. In total there are 17 sub-species of the Long-tailed Tit, the northern European race has an all white head and occasionally occurs here and is always worth checking for in winter,

Garden feeding

Very foggy this morning, but a lot of activity at the feeding station. Long tailed Tits never stay for long, the just seem to pop in for a while and then continue on their circuits.

There were four feeding on peanuts this morning. So far I haven's seen then on the seed feeders at all.

There are many scruffy looking individuals around, so it's nice to see a sharply dressed Great Tit.

At the moment the number of Goldfinches is starting to rise. Last year by late Autumn they were into the hundreds, and my feeders were emptying at a prodigious rate.It's still early so it could happen again this year.

Many of the Goldfinches are looking tatty, they seem to be in active moult , so I guess they need to feed well to nourish their newly growing feathers.

As well as food water is very important, especially at a time when we have scarcely seen any rain for weeks.

Chaffinch numbers are good, they are mostly pretty plain looking at the moment, the spring plumage comes not from a moult but from abrading the softer ends of the feathers they obtained at the end of the summer to reveal their brighter colours.

Their are also loads of very young looking Greenfinches around, they normally have two broods and occasionally three, but looking at the statistics less than 40% of nests actually reach the stage of fledged young due to predation.

Watching this bird bath from my study window can be entertaining, with several species their at the same time. House Sparrows like to get in and have a real splash about.

Spillage from the feeders above provides good foraging for birds feeding on the ground.

Garden Wildlife Health

There has been quite a lot of discussion recently about the reduction in the number of Greenfinches visiting gardens. This first came to our attention a few years ago when an outbreak of the disease trichomonosis hit several species of garden birds, particularly finches and more specifically Greenfinches. On the Kent-birders chat group Kevin Thornton had brought to our attention the recently launched Garden Wildlife Health WEB site The site has been set up to monitor the health of garden wildlife and has been set up by several major conservation bodies including the Zoological Society of London, the BTO, the RSPB and Froglife. Funding comes from various sources including DEFRA. The site is worth a look, as well as allowing you to report any incidents there is also a great deal of advice and information there.

Strangely the last few days have shown a definite increase in the number of Greenfinches visiting my feeders. They seem to arrive in groups and it is impossible to know if it is a result of a larger more widespread movement or local groups moving from one food source to another.

Looking through some photos I took of the feeders today I noticed that this bird was carrying a ring. Without trapping it isn't possible to read the information on it.

The Starling is another species that has been unusually scarce this winter, again that is until the last couple of days when quite large numbers have been visiting.

Like the Greenfinches above these can be quarrelsome when sharing a food, so three on one peanut feeder was unusual and didn't in fact last for long before a fight started.

Over the last few year the regular numbers of Goldfinches attending has definitely increased, and in my case this has nothing to do with nyger seed. Each time I've tried it the feeder has remained untouched and the Sunflower hearts have remained to food of choice.

At one time this feeder had four Long-tailed Tits, a Blue Tit and a Great Tit on it together, but that didn't last long. Great Tits seldom stay on any feeder for more than a couple of seconds before extracting a piece of nut and taking it off somewhere less exposed to eat it. The same is true of Blue Tits on sunflower heart feeders but they stay longer on peanuts, possibly because they find it more difficult to remover larger chunks of  nuts than do Great Tits.

A Blue Tit was again spending a lot of time inspecting this nest box. It's one fitted with a camera, and so far been used. I need to check out the wiring to make sure it's still working.

My favourite time when window gazing is when a party of Long-tailed Tits arrives, another bird that I rarely saw in the garden until recently.