Oxon Summer Birds

June and July are traditionally a quiet time of year in the birding calendar. Often referred to as the summer doldrums, they offer a chance to rest from birding and indulge in other things like orchids and insects. However, this summer there has a veritable cornucopia of top birdage in Oxon during these two months. Let me list them for you:

Red-necked Phalarope (a few hours at Farmoor - I was tied up and gripped to have missed it)
Red-backed Shrike (one evening at Otmoor - not tried for)
Temminck's Stint (see below)
Ferruginous Duck (or hybrid) (not tried for)
Caspian Tern (untwitchable fly-through)
Long-tailed Shrike (already blogged about)
Montagu's Harrier (see below)

What a list! Indeed it must already be a record breaking year in the county for proper rarities (so nationally Scarce+) with 20 birds now falling into that category. Anyway, I managed to see three of them so thought I would cover the two not already blogged about here in one combined post.

Temminck's Stint 

This was that was found on the evening of the 26th June at Farmoor. With nothing better to do that evening I quite fancied a little outing to see this diminutive wader. In the end it proved to be rather flighty and spent as much time in the air, calling loudly, as on the ground while I was there and flew off before too long. Still it was a beautiful evening and I enjoyed wandering up and down the causeway and was practically the last person to leave.

The Temminck's Stint during a brief time when it was on the ground

The start of the summer Yellow-legged Gull influx

The second was a 1st summer Montagu's Harrier that spent about a week up on the downs at Churn. Now, it has been quite a few years since I last saw this species: all the way back when they used to breed at an undisclosed site in the county. So it seemed like a good opportunity to reacquaint myself with this rare Harrier. With the evening proving generally to be the most reliable I headed up one Friday evening shortly after it was first discovered where in the company of a number of local birders I whiled away a very pleasant evening up on the Downs while waiting for a showing. After some brief glimpses of it in the distance, eventually it put on a wonderful show, quartering back and forth in front of us over the fields. With bonus Corn Buntings and a Whinchat it was a wonderful way to pass an evening.

All photos of the Monty's courtesy of Thomas Miller