Otmoor Savi's Warbler (& Not Seeing a Red-footed Falcon)

It is universally agreed that up until recently it had been a very poor spring for birding in Oxon. Patch birding has been unusually poor: my own Port Meadow patch dried up mid April and birding was essentially over there until the autumn. County wide there had not been anything particularly "good", just a light sprinkling of what one might usually expect. That did shift a little with the discovery of the Temminck's Stint at North Cross Valley Way - certainly the bird of the spring so far in the county though there was not really any competition for that accolade. 

Now, nationally there have been three "influxes" this spring: Hoopoe, Temminck's Stint and Red-footed Falcon. We'd managed to get the Stint so that was at least one of them. There had in fact also been a Hoopoe in a Witney garden that was suppressed on the wishes of the owner. What about the Falcon though? It seemed that these charismatic birds were going to give our county a miss despite turning up in numbers all over the place. Suddenly a couple of weeks ago that all changed when a Red-footed Falcon was found along the Thames at Standlake just south of Pit 60 by SM. Cue a mass twitch by the county's finest. Unfortunately I was laid up ill in bed for the two days it was present and only made it down there on the third day where I passed a pleasant few hours in the company of EU and MP not seeing much at all but having a good natter in the process. Thank heavens I didn't need it in the county, having seen one close to the Bucks border at Piddington in 2020. Still, I was smarting from missing a good county bird that I could have seen had I only been well enough.

Yesterday things stepped up another whole gear when a mysterious report of a Savi's Warbler at Otmoor hit the news service in the morning. It wasn't from a local as that would have been published on the local WhatsApp channel. Eventually the source was traced to a Facebook post from a visiting Scottish birder who stated emphatically that it was a Savi's and not a Gropper. An advance party in the form of ultra keen uber-birder TM, armed with a parabolic dish and recording equipment, managed to confirm the ID. Apparently Savi's reel at 4kHz compared to Groppers at around 5.5kHz. So it all kicked off. 

In the morning a good number of county birders managed to connect before things got quieter in the afternoon. Now I had been stuck in various stressful meetings until the early afternoon and must admit to sweating somewhat under the strain of reading regular updates of it being seen while not being able to head out myself. Whilst I could live with missing the Falcon, this was a county first for everyone and not something to be missed if at all possible. At least it wasn't a lifer - I'd seen one at Lakenheath back in 2013. Accordingly, I made plans to turn up in the evening when Savi's traditionally start singing more actively again. I arrived in the car park at around 5:30pm and started the long slog towards the second screen where the bird was located. I met GB and SH coming back. They looked hot and tired and reported that they'd had a couple of glimpses in the three hours they'd been there but it had been hard work. Hopefully things would improve as the evening came on, I thought as I pressed onwards to the twitch site.

I arrived to find the county's great and good all assembed near the second screen peering intently into the reedbed. Viewing was not easy: there were straggly tall reeds right in front of us partically blocking the view and we were not too much above the height of the reedbed so it was hard to see. I was soon filled in on where to look and joined in the vigil. I started to realise that there was a distinct advanted to being tall in this situation. With my short height it was hard to see much. 

There are disadvantages to being short!

Soon a much younger birder behind me reported that the bird was reeling. I had been resigned to perhaps just getting this bird as "heard only". However, tragically, try as I might I couldn't hear the bird at all. Was even hearing this bird going to be beyond my aged hearing abilities? I started to worry. Thankfully, a little while later it sang from much closer and there was no problem with hearing it at all. That was the heard-only tick at least in the bag. Now, if only we could see it. 

Oxon's finest staking out the reedbed courtesy of Justin Taylor

The singing became more frequent until JC said "I've got it!". It was along a channel that was positioned more or less directly away from us that we could look down. It was still well hidden and the best I could manage with my limited height was a partially obscured glimpse before it dropped down. How frustrating! A little while later JC found it again, this time much less obscured. In the scrum that followed it was hard to get an unobscured view but eventually just about everyone got onto it. Except me that is who was still struggling to see it. Fortunately JT got it in his scope and I could finally see it properly. Amazingly it was completely unobscured - a rare sight for this species. A few seconds later and it disappeared but everyone had seen it. 

The Savi's Warbler courtesy of Roger Wyatt

..and digiscoped courtesy of Ian Lewington

After this, there was much rejoicing and the crowd became more relaxed. The bird carried on singing every fifteen minutes or so but, having seen it, people started to drift away. Whilst I'd seen it, I was still thinking that it would be nice to see it again and I was still carrying around some of the stress from my meetings that morning so wanted to linger in the pleasant evening countryside of Otmoor. So I hung on as the crowd diminished until it was just myself and a couple of late comers who had missed all the action. Weirdly the bird stopped reeling after about 8pm and didn't sing again by 8:30pm when I decided to head back. I took my time back to the car, savouring the evening light and the gentle bird song all around me. It was all very beautiful and just what I needed to ease away the stress. At the first screen I met SS who was waiting patiently for the Glossy Ibis to come into roost. I watched with him for a while but eventually left. He reported that it finally arrived at just before 9pm. 

The first screen in the gloaming

Otmoor sunset

I ambled back to the car and headed for home in a reflective frame of mind, enjoying the stillness of the evening. It had been a very pleasant outing and great finally to get another county tick after far too long an interval.

 

Local Birding Winter & Spring Round-up

I've been on a number of local outings to see things of interest so far this year. This has partly been driven by the poor spring performance of my local Port Meadow patch and partly just to add a bit of variety to my birding routine. I had been meaning to blog about these more regularly but somehow things got away from me. So without further ado, below are some of the nice county birds that I've seen this year.

Otmoor Green-winged Teal

This species is a bit of a county Mega with surprisingly few county records over the last 17 years or so that I've been county birding. I saw the Standlake bird in 2018 but that's been the only one. Compare that to American Wigeon where I've seen three in the county already. So when one was found in January of this year I decided to head out on a sunny Saturday morning to pay a visit. It was on show from the first screen fairly regularly and made for an enjoyable morning out. Now if we could only have one on Port Meadow...

Above and below the Green-winged Teal

Oxford Greater Scaup

This bird had been at Farmoor but in January hopped over to Hinksey Lake in Oxford. I was looking for an excuse to get out of the house and decided to walk there to get some exercise. It had been quite a few years since I'd visited Hinksey Lake - I used to go fishing there back in the day so it was nice to see it again. The bird was a bit more distant than when it was first found but I enjoyed seeing this species so close to home.

The Hinksey Greater Scaup courtesy of Gareth Cashburn

Farmoor Slavonian Grebes

A pair of these Grebes turned up on Farmoor one day, looking very smart in near full summer plumage. It had been a few years now since I'd seen one so I went to take a look. They were on show the whole time albeit rather distant. Nevertheless it was great to see them in their summer finery.

The two Slavonian Grebes

Temminck's Stint

Temminck's Stint used to be a bit of a speciality bird of my local patch of Port Meadow though there was no chance this year with the floods drying up there depressingly early in this very dry spring. However, Thomas Miller (see here) found one of these smart little waders on the hot new county site of North Cross Valley Way. A quick 20 minute drive from home one Sunday morning in May allowed me to admire this cracking little bird in what turned out to be a very nice looking site. One could easily imagine something stonking turning up there and fortunately the site is becoming quite well watched now.

Some video footage of the bird.

 

The first birders on the scene with me in the foreground digiscoping, courtesy of Justin Taylor

 

 

 

The Slimbridge White-spotted Bluethroat

Birding has been depressingly quiet in Oxon this spring. On my local Port Meadow patch the floods dried up mid way through April and I haven't even bothered to visit for the last couple of weeks. There was the brief flurry of interest with a Temminck's Stint over towards Witney one day (I'll blog about that separately) but that's been about the only decent bird this spring. So this weekend, with nice weather forecast, I decided to treat myself to a bijou birding sortie. Nothing too long distance but just a nice morning out somewhere. One target which had caught my eye was the White-spotted Bluethroat at Slimbridge. This had been reported regularly for the last week or so as back on territory for it's fifth consecutive year. One has to feel for this bird, gamely returning each year and singing its heart out all to no avail. Still, it was a nice opportunity to see a bird that I've been meaning to visit for a number of years now. The main reason why I'd not been to see it previously was that I'd already seen a Bluethroat, down in Cornwall at Land's End, back in October 2008 (see here). Now, that had been a first winter male so it wasn't possible to pin it down to the White-spotted or Blue-spotted subspecies. So this would be a sub-species tick for me. I therefor decided to pay a visit on Saturday to try to see it. In any event, it was always nice to visit Slimbridge in the spring time.

From my research, the bird seemed to show best first thing in the morning and as a card carrying member of the Simbridge WWT I was allowed early access at around 8am to the reserve. So I was up at 6am and left the house at 6:40 arriving at Slimbridge after an uneventful journey on the quiet roads at just before 8am. There were about half a dozen of us with a similar idea who assembled by the side gate to be let in by the warden just after 8. We all yomped off on the ten minute walk down the Summer Walkway to the Shepherd's Hut overlooking Middle Point on the River Severn. 

The Bluethroat reedbed

The Hut overlooked an area of reedbed, roughly divided into three by lower, grassy areas. A few strategic long bare twigs had been set up with one in each of the three sections apart from the one directly in front where there were two. The distance from the Hut to the back of the reedbed was about 80 metres so it wasn't exactly close viewing though from our elevated vantage point we could see well enough. A couple of people were already there when we arrived and they reported that the bird had been seen already that morning so hopefully it was just going to be a matter of time. Indeed within about 10 minutes of my arrival I spotted it on the furthest of the two twigs in the reedbed in front of us and called it out to the assembled group. It stayed up there singing away for a good couple of minutes offering clear views. I busied myself with some digiscoped video (which came out rather hazy) and some phonescoped shots.

A passable (given it was hand-held) phone-scoped shot of the White-spotted Bluethroat

 

 

 

Some rather hazy video - set the quality to HD 1080

After its initial showing it showed regularly enough, often in the reedbeds when it was partially obscured and sometimes back on its favourite twig. We could often hear it singing away it's scratchy little song.

Fellow admirers of the Bluethroat by the Shepherd's Hut

The weather was beautiful, the bird was regularly on show and we were being serenaded by Reed and Sedge Warblers along with a distant calling Cuckoo. This was just what I needed to recharge the batteries! I got chatting with the person next to me who lived reasonably locally. He told me that he's been to see this bird for the last five years and that this was the best it had ever shown. Apparently the first year you would have to wait several hours for a brief view of a few seconds. I was suitable grateful that my views were so good by comparison. No doubt the improved weather was a contributing factor in its relative showiness today. Also maybe it's just getting desperate to attract a mate after all this time.

After a while things started to go a bit quiet and I decided it was time to head on. So I ambled back towards the main part of the reserve, stopping off at every vantage point to see what was about. The main birds about on the estuary area were a few Greylag and Canada Geese the odd Shelduck as well as a couple of distant Cranes from the release scheme. Back in the main reserve I stopped off at each hide to see what was about. I decided to set up an eBird day list just for fun and busied myself with ticking things off. I arbitrarily set myself a target of 50 birds just to make it more interesting.

The Peng Observatory had lots of lovely Avocets fussing about the place and generally making quite a racket. According to a Slimbridge Tweet there were some wild Pochard in the Eider pen which duly went on the day list. I made my way over to the Zeiss Hide, which is the other main hide for viewing wild birds apart from the Estuary Tower. Here I found the Glossy Ibis but couldn't see the Garganey that had been around yesterday. Redshank and Lapwing were to be seen on the water along with more of the usual stuff. I spent some time surveying the scene and taking it all in

A distant photo of the Glossy Ibis using the SuperZoom Camera

Next I headed over to the South Lake Discovery Hide where Cattle Egret and Black-tailed Godwit went on the list. Everywhere birds were busy in the spring sunshine, feeding, preening or loafing.

A rather over-exposed shot of the Cattle Egrets

My day list was tantalisingly close to my target on 49 species but I felt I'd had enough so I headed over the café for some refreshments before my journey home. Back in the car I fired up the Gnome mobile and headed off, still looking for that elusive last tick. I decided that the canal would be my cut off for the list and fortunately as I was waiting by the swing bridge for it to re-open to traffic a Starling flew over, giving me my 50th tick. 

As I drove back I reflected that this had been the second trip in a row where the prize had been a subspecies. I am more and more inclined towards including subspecies in my listing. It means that some of the great birds that I've seen over the years such as Eastern Black Redstart, American Horned Lark, Azorean Yellow-legged Gull, Steppe Grey Shrike etc are all recognised for the quality birds that they are. After all, it's "my list, my rules" !