The Standlake Birder

  Asian Desert Warbler Sometimes, just sometimes, this hobby really delivers and makes up for all the bad days such as last weeks traipsing around a wet and windy Spurn in a forlorn search for Greenish Warblers. You can guess from the blog title which kind of day yesterday was! My plan was to get up early and head to Norfolk for two target birds, both of which would have been UK life ticks for me. My first stop was Thorpe Marshes nature reserve on the outskirts of Norwich for a Savi’s warbler. I stopped for a break from driving just after 07:00 and checked RBA. I was greeted with  MEGA – Asian Desert Warbler, Holy Island! This is a three start rarity with only 12 previous records in the UK and only one since 2020. Now I was in a real dilemma as to what to do. Holy Island was a 4 hour drive from where I was and 4.5 hours from the Savi’s but surely this was an opportunity not to miss and, if I got it, would almost certainly be my bird of the year! After some deli...

  Blyth's Reed Warbler I have a Blyth’s Reed Warbler as a pencil tick on my UK life list from a bird I saw in Norfolk a few years ago. Why a pencil tick? There was subsequently some debate about the purity of the bird, i.e. did it have a bit of hybrid in it. So when a small influx of these rare birds, which normally spend the summer in Eastern Europe, occurred last week I resolved to go and see one and remove the ambiguity from my list. Due to other commitments, I could only spend a whole day birding on Thursday or Friday this week. Friday’s forecast was marginally better so I chose that day –  mistake no. 1! A remarkably showy one had been singing its heart out at Far Ings nature reserve in north Lincolnshire so I was up at my customary silly o’ clock and headed to Far Ings. The weather worsened as I drove north and on arrival at Far Ings the rain was coming down in biblical deluge fashion. I put my waterproofs on, prayed that Cannon's stated “fully waterproof” spe...

Grasshopper Warbler We have ten comparatively common Warblers in Oxfordshire and on a good day it’s possible to see all ten during spring at Otmoor. Probably my favourite of these ten, the Grasshopper Warbler, is not normally found on Standlake Common and was hence a gaping hole on my year list during the full lockdown. The latin name of the Grasshopper Warbler,  locustella naevia, is a bit of a give-away as to one of its key  characteristics, namely its insect like song. Indeed its song is often mistaken by the non-birder for that of an insect. The song is often compared to the rapid clicking of a fisherman’s reel and is the best way of finding one. They are, however, by habit very sulky birds preferring to creep through dense undergrowth rather than reveal themselves. Even if you hear one it may be impossible to find  due to the strange ventriloquial like effect of its singing. They normally reel for a couple of weeks when they arrive from Africa in mid-April ...