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
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" !
My two older daughters have now passed through the Uni system so no longer provide me with excuses for birding excursions further afield. However, my son is only in his first term at York so there should be a few more years with him. Whilst he does have a room in halls for the whole of the first year, for some reason they wanted to kick him out over Easter - presumably because they wanted to rent it out for a conference. This meant that I had to make two trips over the Easter period over the space of just two weeks. Now, had it been in the middle of autumn I wouldn't have minded but April in the north east is often pretty quiet so I wasn't expecting much. Indeed on the trip up to fetch him there was almost nothing worth going for apart from the long staying Dark-breasted Barn Owl that had been entertaining birders far and wide near Bourne in Lincolnshire. Whilst this is only a sub-species, being the continental form of our own Barn Owl, it would still be a sub-species tick for me and in the absence of anything better I thought I'd have a go. In the end circumstances contrived against me and I could only manage a couple of hours around midday to look for it. Now this bird was known for best being seen early morning or late evening so this was the worst time to try. I duly passed a couple of dull hours staring at a field and some infant Christmas trees before giving up and heading on northwards to fetch my son home.
For the return leg, things were looking more promising. An Eastern Subalpine Warbler had been found at Filey in Yorkshire a couple of days prior. However, the day before it was only seen once briefly late afternoon and by all accounts was very difficult to connect with. It was a shame as Filey was only an hour from York and I need Eastern Subalp for my UK Life List but it just didn't seem reliable enough to warrant having a crack at it. In any event it wasn't reported at all while we drove north to York. There was an added possibility when a female Subalp that was thought to be Eastern was found at Flamborough on the morning of our trip. However opinion later shifted to Western or Moltoni's and that disappeared soon after being found. So having dropped my son off, I decided that there was nothing worth trying for apart from my fall-back option of the Dark-breasted Barn Owl. Even this was only being reported sporadically these days but my hunch that this was more to do with lack of birders trying to see it rather than any change in habits on the bird's part. I hatched a plan to be at Bourne for the evening and to stay somewhere nearby so I could try again early in the morning should I not connect the night before. Accordingly I went ahead and booked an Air BnB near Bourne.
Since it was still early afternoon and I had nothing better to do, I thought I would drop in at RSPB Blacktoft Sands en route. This is one of my favourite reserves with lots of hides to look through all a close distance apart. So I set off on the hour long journey from York, arriving at around 4pm. I then passed a very pleased time ambling between the hides seeing what was about. To be honest, with the tide in there was not a great deal to see apart from Marsh Harriers over the reedbeds and Tree Sparrows in the hedges. Still, the sun was shining and there was lots of Reed and Sedge Warblers singing all around me and I took some time to relax and just enjoy being out in nature.
Above & below, Marsh Harrier over the reeds
The last hide held half a dozen noisy Avocets which were fussing about, complaining about every Marsh Harrier that flew anywhere near and generally making their presence felt. I sipped some tea from my flask and fell into a sort of reverie of stillness, taking it all in and just being content to be where I was.
It's always lovely to see Avocets
Eventually I decided that it was time to move on so I headed back to the car and set the Sat Nav for the wonderfully named "Bah Humbug" Christmas Tree Farm near Bourne, some two hours away, With the time being 5:30pm now, that would get me there in time for the evening showing (should it happen). The journey was uneventful and with Radio 4 for company I duly arrived at the predicted time. I parked up opposite the Christmas Tree Farm and got out to stretch my legs for a bit before retreating back to the car due to a rather chilly breeze that had sprung up. After about 15 minutes a car pulled up with a local inside who wound down the window and asked if I'd seen it yet. He said that it was still very much around but the morning was usually the best time and that he was just driving past on the off chance. After our chat he drove off slowly down the road before suddenly stopping and waving his arm frantically out the window. I needed no second invitation and ran down the road towards him. He told me that he'd just seen the bird fly out of the grass and off behind the line of conifers which bordered the farm buildings. So I'd missed it but at least it was around and actively flying this evening. In an optimistic frame of mind I went back to my car to watch through the open window. A few minutes later another car drew up nearby and stopped. "What are they looking at?" I wondered - then I realised: there was the Owl hunting close to the road in some rough grass next to the Christmas trees! I watched as it hunted low over the grass, beautifully lit in the low evening sunlight. As it flew past me I hoped it would stop and perch on one of the Christmas trees as I'd been told it often did but it didn't. Instead it continued to quarter back and forth along the stretch of road, never going very far and constantly in view. In the end I opted to take a bit of shaky hand-held video footage with my camera by way of a record shot. This actually came out better than expected.
You can set the resolution to HD 1080 for a sharper image
It was a very striking bird with a noticeably dark breast (who would
have guessed!?) and a lovely gingery hue to it. It was altogether very
obviously different from our own native Barn Owl. After about 5 minutes
it headed off out of sight and the local and I both decided to move on.
I went into Bourne to grab a bite to eat before heading off to my Air BnB which was located down a quite road in the middle of nowhere. Some of the back roads were comparatively narrow with a rather deep ditch on one side so I drove carefully in the dark. I was very tired by the time I got there though thankfully the room was comfortable as well as very quiet in its rural location and I was soon asleep.
Having already connected with the Owl, I felt no need to get up early for seconds and instead opted for a bit of a lie in. With nothing else planned I decided to check out a couple of local nature reserves just to get a flavour of the local habitat. The first was Willow Tree Fen which turned out to have some breeding Cranes there. Unlike the reintroduced Otmoor birds in Oxfordshire, these were wild birds. They'd bred for the first time in Lincolnshire in 2020 during the lockdown when the reserve was closed to the public (and so less disturbed). To try to keep them breeding there, the LWT shut down the path across the reserve and instead built a raised viewing platform where the whole site could be surveyed. It worked well and I was able to year tick two Cranes from right next to my parked car. Apart from that there were the usual wading species that one might expect from such a site. It was all very pleasant.
Very much a record shot of one of the two Cranes on show
After that I went to Baston Fen, where one was able to walk along a
raised dyke that overlooked a large area of farmland. Indeed I
recognised the dyke as having been distantly on view from the Barn Owl
site from last night. There was nothing of particular note to see but it
was nice to amble along in the sunshine, listening to all the spring
bird song.
A Reed Bunting at Baston Fen
Fenland landscape at Baston Fen
Then it was time to head for home. The journey back was long but uneventful and I arrived back at Casa Gnome at lunchtime pleased enough with my latest Uni Run Adventure.
I'm sure that all UK birders are already well aware of the long-staying pale morph Booted Eagle that has taken up residence just north of Marazion in Cornwall these last few weeks. What was presumably the same bird was first seen in Cornwall in October of last year for a couple of days before disappearing and it wasn't until the 12th January that it was found again over the pines just north of Marazion marsh. This time it was more reliable and has remained faithful to the same location ever since. Now, at over four hours away this was too far for me personally to want to to twitch so it was only going to be if I had some kind of alternate reason for being down in that neck of the woods that I might consider going for it. Sadly, such a reason was supplied with a sudden and tragic death of a family member down in Exeter. With the funeral due on Monday, and less than two hours from there down to Marazion, I had my reasonable excuse. So I decided to make a weekend of it and headed down on the long and familiar slog from Oxford to Cornwall on Saturday morning. The trip was as tedious as ever but had the added frisson of reports of the Eagle "showing well" in the trees from the railway bridge for over a couple of hours. Usually it was only seen circling over the pines or coming into or leaving its roost so to have it sitting in a tree for an extended period of time was most unusual. "Could it stay there until I arrived?", I wondered. In the end it left a good hour before I reached Marazion so I was left wishing I'd headed off at the crack of dawn instead of my more leisurely start.
I should say a bit about viewing locations for this bird. Since January it had remained faithful to roosting in the same set of pine trees, just to the south east of Bowgyheere Farm and just north of the A394 railway bridge. There were two viewing locations for seeing it. One was from the lay-by on the A30 just south of the Ludgvan Leaze turn off where the St Michael's Way footpath meets the A30 and the other was from the railway bridge itself. The former site offered a panoramic albeit distant view of the roosting pines, various farm fields and behind you the ridge where Ludgvan was located. The bird had been seen from this location at various random times of the day as well as when it as it left or came back to the roosting pines. On some days, it would sit in the fields or on a distant branch where it could be seen from the lay-by. On the other hand the railway bridge would only offer views of it leaving or returning to the roost though these views would be much closer. So having it sit out in the open as it had done that morning was most unusual. Fellow county birder NT who was already down there had reported crippling views of the bird for a couple of hours that morning though, as I said previously, it had left a good hour before I arrived.
Armed with all the above information, I had decided that the best chance of my seeing the bird would be from the lay-by. I wasn't so concerned about crippling photos - just a nice tick would do me. For this reason I opted for the lay-by as my viewing location so just after 1pm I pulled up there to find just one other car and a young couple camped out in the lay-by and scanning the area. I wasn't too surprised - with the Eagle having put on such a great performance that morning the only people who would be there would be late arrivals such as myself. We struck up a conversation to while away the time while scanning the vista. Gradually more people joined us in our vigil though it was slow going. One thing about viewing from here was the constant noise. It was deafening! Just occasionally there would be a brief lull in the passing cars and a few moments of blissful silence before it all started again. Scanning every passing bird meant that one soon got tuned into the different jizzes: Gulls, Buzzards and Crows were the main birds with an occasional Heron or Goose thrown in.
This view became etched into my memory. The roosting pines are in the centre
As it started to get dark birder numbers fell again until it was just myself and a family of birders from up in the Merseyside area who seemed as keen as I was to see the bird. At around 4:30pm news came through on RBA of the bird again from the railway bridge and "showing well". Panic ensued and myself and the family party decided to head over there. I opted to walk (well more like run) down the St Michael's Way footpath and along the road whereas they got into their car and sped around to the other location. The trouble was the nearest lay-by to the railway bridge for parking was a good five minutes walk and in the end we arrived at the same time. There was no one else to be seen. A quick scan and I picked up a Buzzard sitting in the trees. Could this have been strung into the Eagle? It was impossible to tell. All we knew was the bird wasn't there and it had got too dark to see. Defeated and disconsolate we went our separate ways, vowing to come back tomorrow to try again.
I trudged back to the A30 lay-by and drove down to Marazion beach to stare at the sea and drink some now cold tea from my flask and to have a bite to eat. Then I drove to Sainsbury's to pick up some food for the evening and the headed off to my Air BnB for the night. This was located just the other side of Marazion at Plain-an-Gwarry. It turned out be a very nice modern apartment annex in a wonderfully quiet rural location. With a small kitchen and lounge as well as a bedrooom it was perfect for my two night stay. I settled in for the evening, very tired after a long and fruitless day. I turned in early, hoping that I would be able to connect with this frustrating Eagle at some point tomorrow.
The next morning I was up and out the door early and back at the lay-by just before 8am. The Merseyside family were there already though the weather was dark and gloomy and it was hard to see anything. We set about our vigil once more though the gloom and the chilly breeze made it difficult and uncomfortable. A Curlew in the field and three Canada Geese flying past were the only points of interest. After a little while another birder turned up who had been at the railway bridge that morning. He reported that he had seen the Eagle leave the roost from the trees at around 8am. Apparently it had been on view for all of five seconds and only 3 out of the 6 birders present had managed to see it. The birding family then reported that they had seen something fly out low from the trees at around that time being mobbed heavily but it had been too dark for them to make it out. It must have been the bird! Guttingly, I had only arrived then and was still getting ready so I'd been too late. How frustrating! Incidentally, I'd been told from various other people that a bird of prey being heavily mobbed was a good indication of it being the target bird as apparently, the corvids largely ignore the local Buzzards.
Gradually other birders arrived and joined us. Chatting with the birding family they were equally frustrated. They'd probably seen it but views just hadn't been good enough. What's more they had to leave late morning to head back up north and it seemed that the bird had now headed out for the day. In the end they decided to head over to Hayle to try to connect with some of the local birds of interests there and I decided to join them. To be honest, by this point I'd had enough of the lay-by and of not seeing the Eagle and wanted to do something else and a nice bit of gulling would be the perfect antidote. They told me that they had inside gen that the Ring-billed Gull would hang out with the flock of Common Gulls at Lelant Station. Now, I was familiar with Lelant Saltings but had never been to the Station so I followed them in the car up towards St Ives and then down the aptly named Station Hill to a cute little station tucked in some trees by the bend in the river. From the platform there were some reasonable close gulls to look through and it was quiet (no noisy traffic!) and out of the wind. What a nice contrast!
The others found the Spoonbill a bit further up the river towards the Saltings and I managed to find the Ring-billed Gull, more or less in front of us with the Common Gulls. It had been a few years since I'd seen a Ring-billed Gull so it was nice to catch up with one. Also on show was a Red-breasted Merganser, a Bar-tailed Godwit, a couple of Shelduck and the usual loafing larger gulls. Unfortunately the Glaucous Gull that had been around wasn't on show.
The adult Ring-billed Gull
After a while I'd had my fill and bade farewell to my northern friends and wished them a safe journey back. I couldn't face more time at the lay-by and anyway, it was going to be late afternoon that was going to be the prime opportunity to connect as the bird came into the roost so I wanted to do something else for a while. So I headed over to Pendeen to take a look at my old cottage there. Seeing it again brought up a weird mixture of nostalgia for past times and relief at no longer being responsible for the constant maintenance of the place. The scenery was just as stunning as before but I had a feeling that it all belonged to my past now. I decided to have a bit of a wander around to get a bit of exercise - I'd been standing around for far too long at the lay-by and it felt good to be on the move again. However, I didn't want to linger by Pendeen, partly because of the chilly wind so I headed over towards Kenidjack. Giving the wind direction, instead of going down the valley I decided to walk the other way up Tregeseal just to explore. I wandered all the way up to the moor there and back down again, finding a smart male Black Redstart on the roof of one of the houses for my troubles. By now the sun had come out and it was almost starting to feel pleasantly warm.
The Black Redstart on the roof of "The Meadows"
Sometime after 2 o'clock I headed back towards Penzance and nipped in at Battery Rocks by Jubilee Pool to year tick Purple Sandpiper. There were about forty of them sitting out the high tide on the rocks there. Always a delight to see! Then I girded my loins and headed back to the lay-by for another session. Hopefully this time it would prove fruitful.
Roosting Purple Sandpipers
At the lay-by it was back to the same as before. Chatting with the birders, checking out any passing large bird that we could spot and hoping the Eagle would come by and give us all what we wanted. The birder from this morning who'd seen it at the railway bridge was there and we got talking. He spotted some Egrets in a very distant cattle field and we decided that they were probably Cattle Egrets.
Above and below, lay-by birders
Some time after 4pm I got the sense that some people at the other end of the line (there were about ten of us) were onto something - they were looking very intently through their scopes. My companion next to me also called out the Eagle but the noise of the traffic was such that it was very hard to hear instructions. It was all over in a few seconds anyway. Three people had managed to see it as it had come in and I'd got a glimpse of something that could well have been it but it had all been too quick and now it was over. How frustrating! Those of us who had missed it decided to head over to the railway bridge on the off chance that it was still on view there. We arrived to find triumphant birders who'd been stationed there all starting to leave having had great views as it had come in, circled a couple of times and then gone into the trees to roost. It was not on view now and once again I'd missed it.
There was nothing I could do and I was stoical enough. Anyway, it was getting late and I was hungry so I headed back to Sainsbury's only to remember that it was Sunday and it was closed. Hah! I remembered this problem from before and knew that the Tesco's Express in town would be open so I nipped over there. There was a nice Starling murmuration of quite a resonable size over the main car park as I walked up the hill into Penzance. I found something suitable for dinner and then headed back to the AirBnB for the night. After having eaten I felt better and thought through my plans for the next day. The funeral was up in Exeter at 1:30pm and it was about a two hour drive. This would give me a bit of time for a last try for the Eagle tomorrow morning. With my accumulated experience over the last couple of days I decided that the lay-by was not the best site for my final attempt. In fact over the weekend the railway bridge site had consistently out performed the lay-by. On reflection, from what I now knew, my recommended tactics would be railway bridge for the departure and arrival from roosting and lay-by only during the day once it had left. In any event, I simply couldn't face the lay-by any more and the change of scenery would be a welcome relief if nothing else. Also, I'd learned the hard way that I had to be there earlier than I thought so I made plans to be there in good time tomorrow. Very tired from my efforts of the day, I turned in early and was soon asleep.
The next morning I was up and out the door by 7:15am. I parked up at a lay-by near the Marazion roundabout and walked back to the railway bridge ready for my last attempt. I was somewhat surprised to find that I was the only person there. Having multiple pairs of eyes would have been helpful. I kept my eyes peeled on the pines in case the Eagle should break cover. As I watched I heard a Firecrest calling in the valley beneath the bridge. A male and female birding couple arrived whom I recognised from yesterday afternoon as having been there. Just as they walked up he started scanning the trees and said "there it is!".
"Huh???"
He was right! It was perched up in one of the deciduous trees out in plain view. I realise that in my keeness not to miss the bird as it came out of the pines I'd not actually scanned through the trees at all and had missed it sitting out in plain view - Doh! Anyway, there it was in all its Eagle glory, sitting there and no doubt wondering how it had managed to get so lost and find itself in cold England in the middle of winter. I took some video and basked in the relief of finally having connected. All the frustration and tension of the weekend melted away and I could relax. I couldn't believe how good the views of the Eagle were: instead of the distant speck over the pines, here it was close up and just sitting there nonchalantly. I put the word out on various channels and took some video. From the
bridge its head was partly obscured but by walking up the road a bit it
was possible to find a gap in the trees where it could be viewed without
obstruction (thanks to NT for that tip!).
A phone-scoped phto of the bird loafing in the trees
A couple of other birders arrived on the back of my RBA submission whom I recognised as having dipped yesterday afternoon from the lay-by. They too were most relieved finally to connect like this. As I had seen the bird so quickly (it was just before 8am that it was first found) I decided that I had plenty of time and would wait to see it fly. After a while it did so but only to a nearly tree so it was still on view albeit a bit more distant and more obscured. Still, it was enough for me and I decided to head off to Exeter in good time. So it was back to the car, then after a brief nip back to Sainsbury's to fuel up I headed off on the long slog north towards Exeter.
The journey northwards was long and uneventful. Because I had plenty of time I had decided on a last birding effort. RSPB Labrador Bay was only half an hour from Exeter and apparently offered views of Cirl Buntings from the car park. "What's not to like?", I thought, delighting at the prospect of eating my lunch while watching these colourful Buntings. In the event, things didn't quite go according to plan. There was a howling gale blowing directly in off the sea up towards the car park hedge and no self respecting Bunting was going to be anywhere near those hedges. So I got tooled up and had a wander around. I met a birding lady from Somerset who was also looking and we teamed up. A quick phone call to NT who'd been the previous day in similar weather conditions gave me some guidance on where to look but to no avail. In the end I spent far too long searching and had to rush back to the car, change into my funeral clothes in the back of the car and then rush back to Exeter. I got there just in time and hurriedly wolfed down some lunch in the car park before joining the proceedings. The funderal and wake were as good as these things can be. At least it was a chance to catch up with some family members.
At around 4pm I headed off on the final leg of my journey back home to Oxford. This last leg was very tiring with rain, the dark and the narrow windy roads of the A40 and the glare of on-coming cars making for difficult driving conditions and I didn't arrive back at Casa Gnome until after 7pm. Still, I'd got back safely and had had a great long weekend away with a stonking first lifer of the year under my belt. Despite the hard work involved, it had been a great trip away.
Somehow I've managed to make my 2024 end of year review even later than usual - I don't quite know how that happened. Anyway, better late than never! As usual, my birding year is divided into patch, county and national birding so without further ado let's kick things off.
Patch Birding
One of the reasons for delaying this review is that I have to do the Port Meadow patch annual review first and this was only published a few days ago. You can read the full Port Meadow Annual Review here so this will just be an executive summary.
The two previous years had been record breaking in terms of the patch year list so it was back to more usual numbers this year with a total of 141. It was a strange year in terms of the weather with a very wet spring and a blocking weather pattern over Spain keeping the migrants away for a long time. All this resulted in unusually low spring migrant numbers and meant that we missed some key waders that we might normally expect to get. Still the last few months of the year were very good with lots of fly-over patch gold picked up by a particularly keen patch worker who single-handedly brought the year list total up to a respectable total.
The short list for the Patch Bird of the Year was as follows: Grey-headed Wagtail (subspecies) Spoonbill Baltic Gull (subspecies) Yellowhammer Hawfinch Kittiwake Pink-footed Goose Merlin Yellow-browed Warbler Siberian Chiffchaff (subspecies)
The award went to the Baltic Gull on the grounds that it was the rarest on the list.
The 2w Baltic Gull courtesy of Thomas Miller
On a personal level, this was the first year in quite a while when I didn't get a single addition to my personal patch list. Of course it's getting increasingly hard to add to the list given how long I've been birding the patch but it was a bit disappointing not to get anything in that respect for a whole year's patch birding.
County Birding
Continuing on with the "somewhat disappointing" theme, county birding this year was a very quiet affair. Indeed it was the lowest county year list total this centuary with only 201 different species seen across the county and personally there were no county life list additions this year. That's not to say that I didn't do any county birding away from the patch. Towards the end of the year there were some nice local scarcities that I went to visit including the two long staying Velvet Scoter pair up in Banbury and the one-day Snow Bunting at Farmoor - see the write-up here.
Above the Farmoor Snow Bunting & below the two Velvet Scoter at Grimsbury Reservoir, Banbury
I also went to see the long-staying Black Redstart at Christ Church College, Oxford along with a Purple Sandpiper at Farmoor - write-up here.
The Farmoor Purple Sandpiper
There is of course the customary Gnome Studio's Oxon Birding Review video with it's usual, inappropriate music. These days what with copyright restrictions it's getting hard to find suitable music that won't have your video banned so I've resorted to the same music as I used a couple of years ago which is free to use.
International Birding
I'm going to sneak in an additional category here. I'm not known for birding internationally but in April I went to Tenerife on the back of my eldest daughter's work trip and managed to catch up with all the endemics that I wanted to see. I must say that I really enjoyed this trip - it was just the right combination of a family based holiday with some great birding.
The iconic Tenerife Blue Chaffinch
Not Birds
I didn't do so much of the non-birding stuff this year but I enjoyed a trip down to Kent finally to put Dainty Damselfly on my list. This now completes my UK Damselfly list, at least until we get another colonist species.
Male Dainty Damselfly
I also went up to Scotland in the summer finally to add Creeping Lady's Tresses to my orchid list.
Creeping Lady's Tresses in the Loch Garten Forest
National Birding
This is probably the category that I enjoy the most though my strict criteria for twitching (it must be reliable with a high chance of connecting and not too far away) means that I don't go on many trips these days. Still I managed six UK lifers this year (including Steppe Grey Shrike which is currently officially a subsspecies) which is about average for me these days.
Things kicked off unexpectedly early in the year with the discovery of a Northern Waterthrush down in Essex. Initially it was too unreliable for me to consider it but once it's habits had been pinned down it was easy enough provided one was on site for first light.
A blurry shot of the Northern Waterthrush taken in the half light of dawn
My next out of county sortie was totally left field. Who would have thought that an Alpine Accentor would turn up in a quarry in Buckinghamshire in May? It was a drop everything and go twitch with a challenging descent of a steep hill thrown in but totally worth it!
The Pitstone Alpine Accentor
My next national sortie wasn't until August when, en route to getting my daughter back from Aberdeen (via the Cairngorms) I stopped off for the Greater Sand Plover at Newbiggin in Northumberland. It was a great bird in a lovely setting. It was just a shame that I didn't manage to conenct with the Stejneger's Scoter on the same trip. Missing that still smarts as I write this.
The Newbiggin Greater Sand Plover
As part of taking my son off to Uni at York, I made a sortie by train up to Dunbar to connect with the Steppe Grey Shrike. A great bird in a very picturesque setting. With a Pectoral Sandpiper at RSPB Blacktoft Sands on the way back home, it was a good trip!
The Dunbar Steppe Grey Shrike
There was some classic east coast birding up in Yorkshire in October with Spurn and Flamborough both turning up some great birds. I missed the star attraction in the form of the Pale-legged Leaf Warbler but managed to catch up with Arctic Warbler finally as well as a nice supporting cast of Red-breasted Flycatcher, Daurian Shrike and Grey Phalarope. I did also manage to dip Icterine Warbler by five minutes which was annoying.
A blurry grab of the Arctic Warbler
My final trip of the year was on Boxing Day when an unexpected Yellow Warbler turned up in Kent quite close to where I was spending Christmas in Surrey. It was a no-brainer to go for it and fortunately I went on a day when it showed constantly. After the day I visited it became much less reliable and harder to see.
The Yellow Warbler courtesy of Thomas Miller
In terms of the much coveted Gnome National Bird of the Year I think it has to go to the Yellow Warbler. A bright yellow American Warbler on a gloomy winter's day - what's not to like?
So that was my review of the year. This coming year I expect will be more of the same. It's probably officially a bit too late to wish my readers a Happy, Bird-filled New Year but I'll do it anyway.
The Yellow Warbler. All bird photos courtesy of Thomas Miller - see his great blog here
I'm sure I wasn't the only birder who's plans for Christmas were suddenly impacted by the discovery on Christmas Eve at around midday of a Yellow Warbler in Kent. This was a proper top draw Mega and only the second mainland bird this century after the one in Portland that was only around on the day of discovery (I know because I was waiting on news the next day). What's more, the distance was reasonble from Oxford - what was not to like? Of course there was the small matter of Christmas - the brownie point costs could be enormous and one would have to tread very carefully. Whilst some people were there on Christmas Day itself that was not an option for me personally and I put it out of my mind as best I could and got on with enjoying the family time and the feasting. We had gone to visit my Brother-in-law in north Surrey for the duration which just so happened to be more than half way to the Yellow Warbler location. I followed events on various WhatsApp channels (which these days are ahead of the more traditional bird news services) and decided that the bird had a distinct pattern of being more around in the afternoon. This meant that there would be no need for an early morning twitch. It was then just a matter of negotiating the tricky aspect of "getting time off " to go and see it.
On Boxing Day I was one of the first up. I was chatting quietly with my Brother-in-law and my VLW in the kitchen and I casually mentioned the Yellow Warbler and how it was so close to where we already were that it would be ridiculous not to go for it. In the end there was little opposition so I hurridly made a packed lunch and headed off sometime after 11am towards New Hythe. Unfortunately the traffic on the M25 was horrendous and I had to watch as the ETA on the Sat Nav kept creeping up. It's so disheartening when you drive for 10 minutes only to discover that the estimated time to your destination hasn't gone down at all. In the end the traffic started to ease as I got further east and finally at around 1pm I was pulling up at the location. I could see various birders' cars dotted around the place and chose to park up on a street near the car park to avoid having to fret about it closing. The news on WhatsApp had been positive for some time - the bird seemed to be on show more or less constantly. I hurried along the path by the mill stream towards the twitch line, meeting one or two birders coming the other way but thankfully not seeing any kind of mass exodus that might signify that it was all over.
Finally I arrived at the twitch line where there bird was immediately on view, calling regularly and flitting around in one of the five Alder trees that were on the far side of the mill stream next to the sewage works.
Typical views in the Alder Tree
The five Alder Trees which the bird favoured. You can see how gloomy it was on the day I visited
There were no more than about 30 birders present when I was there
With relief I followed the bird as it worked its way constantly through the trees. Thankfully its bright yellow colouration made it easier to pick out and
it would ruthlessly chase off other birds so anything moving would
usually be the target bird. While it was easy to see, photographing it on the other hand was a different matter. It was constantly on the move, the light levels were extremely gloomy and it was almost always on the far (sewage works) side of the trees. I was hoping that it might drop down into the brambles in front of the Alders where it would be much easier and I could at least get some video footage from which to take a grab. However, it spent the entire time resolutely sticking to the back of the trees. It would occasionally disappear for a few minutes as it dropped down behind the brambles out of sight before emerging again a few minutes later.
When Thomas Miller visited there was some sunlight and it did briefly drop down to offer better views
The American Yellow Warbler (Setophaga petechia) is a common New World Warbler that can be found throughout North and South American. Indeed I have seen lots of them while on family holidays there. However, it is a rare vagrant to this country with only a handful of records and only one previous mainland record this century back in 2017 at Portland. Fortunately this one was a nice bright male so more pleasing to the eye than the drabber females. The general consensus was that the bird was sticking to the sewage works out of sight until it got warm enough that the insects were about in the trees. This was why it was mainly being seen in the afternoons. With warmer weather it would probably be on show more often.
I stuck around for about an hour and a half following the bird's antics and hoping for a closer view but in the end I realised that I wasn't going to get one. So shortly before 3pm I headed back to the car and set the coordinates for my brother-in-law's. The traffic had eased and it only took an hour to get back to the family. They'd been out for a local walk and were in good spirits. I was soon catching up with them over a celebratory cup of tea. What a lovely bonus Christmas present the Yellow Warbler had been!
Oxfordshire seems to be on good form at the moment. After my two recent local sorties in my previous post, I now have a couple more to describe. The first is a long-staying first winter male Black Redstart that has been hanging out on the southern face of Christ Church College overlooking Christ Church Meadows. This site has hosted several previous Black Redstart so it wasn't a great surprise to hear that one had again taken up residence. However, rather than the usual female type, this one was a very smart first winter male so I made a mental note to try to pay a visit.
A stunning photo of the stunning 1w male Black Redstart courtesy of Thomas Miller
The general consensus was that early mornings were the best for seeing this bird. Despite this, Wednesday of last week I had an early afternoon meeting in the centre of town so I thought I would go on to try for the bird. It was a very gloomy afternoon where the light was so poor that it was hard to see anything. Myself and a young couple put in an hour or so of watching to be rewarded with some very brief views of a bird that was behaving in the right way as it briefly fed on the creeper that clung to the college wall. I only saw it face on and it didn't have the striking black face mask of the target bird and I hadn't seen it well enough to see it's tail. On the views I had had, I couldn't rule out a Dunnock so I left disappointed.
That same Friday, after several days of gloom, it was finally forecast to be bright and sunny so I thought I would get up early and have another attempt. I was on site at 8:25am where, in the company of DL, we spotted the bird leaving its roost in some trees just by the college wheelie bins, before, to our surprise it flew off across the path and disappeared on the flooded grass of the Meadow. Hmmm, that had not been what we were expecting. DL and AF (who had joined us) elected to walk down the path to try and find it while I decided to stay at the college facade and the bins. The others eventually returned with no luck and a few other people turned up. Before too long the bird was back, showing rather distantly on the side of the college and also in the large tree in the college garden. It then moved to the roof top where I was finally able to get a photo.
A rather distant photo of it perched on the roof of the college
I kept watching the college facade as the bird appeared from time to time. On one such occasion I noticed that it wasn't the usual male on the side of the wall but instead a female type. So there were now two birds! In hindsight, what I'd seen a couple of days ago and had dismissed as a Dunnock was probably this second, more infrequently seen bird. I hung around for a while longer enjoying watching these charismatic birds feeding in the bright sunshine before heading back home. The first winter male is still around a week later and the female type is seen occasionally though much less frequently.
The female type Black Redstart courtesy of Thomas Miller
The county's purple patch continued when on the following Sunday, in the teeth of Storm Darragh, EU managed to find a Purple Sandpiper on the shores of Farmoor Reservoir. This is a fairly rare county species. Indeed, apart from a couple of birds in August 2021, you have to go back to 2011 for the last county record. So, along with a number of other county birders, I braved the storm to take a look. The wind was so strong that, despite the bird being very approachable, I didn't linger long after taking some photos. It was a shame as it's was a lovely that showed very well at close quarters. After no more than fifteen minutes in its company I beat a hasty retreat back to the car.
