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| 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 the fence to the left on the Langley lane hide. Unlike Farmoor, where they are often observed under the bird feeders, they are often heard but seldom seen at pit 60. I suspect our locals would be too far from the safety of their marshy vegetation habitat to follow suit. Two overwintering Great White Egrets can often be seen on the grass opposite the north hide. A pair of Chiffchaff have been quite active in the area I call warbler corner at the top of Shifford Lane. A few years ago this would have been pretty much unheard of but we now expect to get both Blackcaps and Chiffchaff on our bird lists before winter is out. Interestingly, research has shown that the overwintering Blackcaps are migrants from Germany rather than our summer visitors.
Dix Pit has been the source of some birding interest in recent weeks with up to three Scaup, a red head Smew and an overwintering Garganey present. The presence of the Garganey in winter is again highly unusual as they are normally summer migrants to these shores.
Further afield there have been reports of Swallows overwintering on the south coast. A high risk high reward strategy that will give them a big energy saving and breeding advantage over returning African migrants as long as we don’t get a sudden prolonged cold snap.
As the great man said, the times they are a changing.
There have been some 277 accepted records of the American Blue-winged Teal in the UK of which I have seen precisely none! I have hence been keeping an eye on reports of a first winter drake overwintering on Man Sands just down the coast from Brixham in Devon. As a first winter bird it was, dare I say, a rather drab nondescript brown duck but I planned to visit if it moulted into adult plumage during its stay. At the weekend local birder Andy posted a picture on RBA which showed that it was now displaying its adult finery. Another early morning trip was hence again planned for Thursday.
I have learned not to trust my shat nav when I get close to birding locations, trusting instead my OS locate app. On this particular occasion this was very wise as my shat nav invited me to drive down a private mud track which appeared to lead to someone’s house. Instead I followed OS locate down a steep decent on an adjacent footpath and was soon greeted by scenic views over Man Sands. The forecast was for cloudy weather and a chilly 3 degrees. In fact it was 13 degrees and I was totally overdressed. With modern satellite imagery how can the forecast be so wrong when it is only looking less than 12 hours out?
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| The view over Man Sands |
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| The shat nav route for the last mile - I don't think so!! |
The Blue-Winged Teal was located in a small marshy area immediately before the beach and two friendly local birders immediately got me onto the bird, my second UK lifer of the new year. The blue on its wing which gives it its name is a subtle but very attractive gun metal blue that is hard to see unless the bird is in flight or flaps its wings. I spent a very pleasant two hours in the spring like conditions observing and photographing the bird as it went about its business feeding on submerged vegetation.
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| Blue Winged Tea |
My plan was then to visit Labrador bay just up the road past Torbay where the RSPB have a small hillside reserve overlooking the coast. This is pretty much the only place in the UK that you can see Cirl bunting. It is a non migratory bird at the far north of its range in the UK. In common with many other farmland specialists its numbers have been decimated by modern monoculture agriculture such that there was only some one hundred pairs left in 1990. Careful land management by the RSPB has seen its numbers since increase by a factor of ten to some thousand pairs.
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| The view over labrador bay |
For various reasons I have only been to Labrador bay in the winter which I suspect is not the best time to photograph these attractive little buntings as they tend to be in restless flocks fliting around quite deeply in the hedgerow. I would guess in spring the males are more likely to perch up in the open while singing. Superficially at least, they resemble Yellowhammers and the females can be quite tricky to tell apart. The males however are fairly easy to distinguish showing big dark facially stripes, a dark chin and an olive green upper breast band. I watched a small flock for an hour or so but again failed to get a half decent photo, not that I need an excuse to return to Labrador bay again to see these attractive buntings.
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| A typical Cirl Bunting View - 2/10 must try harder! |
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