The Standlake Birder

Over the years we have been blessed with many beautiful visitors to our bird feeders. Blue and Great Tits and Goldfinches are year round guests.  Coal Tits are also regular visitors all be in in much smaller numbers. The winter, however, seems to be the season when we can hope for something a little special. Last year, for example, was the year of the Brambling. For six wonderful weeks at the end of winter a flock of ten or so of these delightful northern visitors were almost every present under our feeders. Four years ago a spell of hard cold winter weather drove Siskins and Redpolls to our feeders in unprecedented numbers. This year seems to be the year of the Greenfinch. While they are present every year this winter has been notable for their exceptional numbers. At any one time we have had up to twenty finches in and around the feeders. I find this very heartening as their numbers national have been greatly diminished by the   protozoal  parasite  Trichomonas gallinae .

I decided to do something a little different this morning and have a stroll around Wytham woods. I must confess that these woods hold bitter sweet memories for me. For most of my adult life I was (was being the operative word) a very serious runner and Wytham Woods was the location of my last ever competitive race in 2010. In order for me to win our running club championship that year I had to compete in the last race in the competition even though I was carrying a pretty major tendon injury. The result was that I won the club championship but exasperated the injury so badly that it was six months before I could run properly again. By this time the motivation had really gone and I soon decided that my serious running days were over. Wytham woods was also the location for my clubs weekly hill training sessions in the winter. These involved some ten miles of hill repetitions, i.e jogging down a hill then running flat out up it repeated ten times before moving onto the next hill – i

Pit 60 Great White Egret It has felt positively spring like on my recent walks around Standlake common. Robins and Song Thrushes are becoming much more vocal as they set up and defend territories and Blackbirds are once again blessing us with their lovely sweet song. On the footpath between Shifford and Langley lane the wild plums are in blossom some two weeks earlier than usual. The mild winter, presumably a foretaste of things to come in a warming world, is having its impact on the local wildlife. Winter thrushes have been noticeable for their absence around the common since Christmas with just small flocks of Redwing still present. We normally get quite large flocks of Fieldfare feeding on worms and dung beetles in our horse paddocks in late winter but they have been totally absent so far this year. On pit 60 the winter has been notable for the large numbers of overwintering Pintail, Mick recently counted 161. A rather bold Water Rail has been scavenging the area by t