Saturday and Sunday 9th and 10th June

Singing Sedgie (c) JR

Both days this weekend started grey and cool but by midday the cloud had burned back to sunshine and blue skies. When the sun finally came out the moor looked even more lush and verdant than it had last weekend. The Cow Parsleys, Pignuts and Hogweeds along the bridleway and paths are producing their multi branched bracts of flowers.

Pink and white roses spangle the hedgerows and out across Greenaways there are drifts of creamy white Meadow-rue rising above the grasses and sedges. The latter flowering prior to setting seed… hay-fever sufferers such as myself, can vouch for just how much pollen they are producing!

Bittern over Meadow Rue (c) Bark

There was a good deal of Bittern activity this weekend and it looks very much as if feeding flights are getting under way, but we have not yet established firm details about how many females we are seeing and where they are heading to. I can remember when seeing a Bittern on Otmoor was a red-letter day and now it’s become something that we take almost for granted. It was brilliant to hear and see the reaction of a visiting birder on Sunday who despite having seen most members of the heron family had never seen a Bittern before. Then, just like waiting for a bus, two came along almost at once! It reminded me just how far the reserve has come and how we used to think that breeding bitterns were just a pipe-dream.

Feeding Flight ?(c) Bark

Out on the northern lagoon the Tern Raft is once again proving to be productive and on Sunday morning we could see at least five fluffy chicks huddled together and then calling and begging when any adult with food appeared. Seven other adults looked to be still sitting on eggs, so the population is almost certain to grow further.

Tern Chick (c) Luke O'Byrne

This weekend may well prove to be the last hurrah for the Cuckoos courtship and mating activities. The males will soon be off, and the females will not be far behind them leaving the next generation secreted in the nests of the Reed Warblers. Once again there was a good deal of activity with males chasing females including the hepatic bird and a lot of cuckooing and bubbling calls. On Sunday a regular observer had six birds flying in front of him and another calling from behind him. We will now watch for females sitting up high in bushes and on fence posts searching for Reed Warbler nests and waiting for the perfect moment to slip in and deposit their egg.

Cuckoo (c) JR

In another three or four weeks we will see how successful they have been, when we find harassed looking warblers feeding their enormous foundlings.

Reluctant Host Reed Warbler (c) JR

Marsh Harriers too have been very active over the whole moor and from time to time a male will arrive with prey and transfer it to one of the females in an adroit aerial food-pass.

We have reached the time when some birds are starting off their second broods and so the pattern of singing and calling males has changed again. The Lesser Whitethroats that were so loud and noticeable last week are quiet and the Grasshopper Warblers in the car park field and July’s Meadow have started to reel again. Male Reed buntings are singing and vying with each other for territory. It was very noticeable by the first screen as two males chased and chivvied each other around the bushes and tussocks on the bund.

Male Reed Warbler at the first screen (c) Bark

A Great White Egret is being seen from time to time and at least five Little Egrets are using the pools and scrapes on Greenaways and Big Otmoor.

Greenaways Little egret (c) Bark

A Cattle Egret was reported last week on R.B.A. alongside Little Egrets on Greenaways, we have not been able to verify or corroborate this record. There was certainly no sign of a Cattle Egret this weekend.

Black Hairstreak (c) Jackie Newcombe

 On Saturday morning an Otmoor regular found a Black Hairstreak butterfly on the track in the car park field. It was a cold start to the day and it seemed semi-comatose, she was able to get it on her finger and put it onto a blackthorn where it could start to warm up and get going. They are a very beautiful little butterfly and they will be on the wing for the next few weeks before the Brown Hairstreaks begin to appear in mid-July.

Darter sp (c) Bark and Black tailed Skimmer (c) Stoneshank

More Dragonfly species are emerging in adult form and we noticed several Darters and Skimmers on Sunday.

Blood Vein Moth (c) Stoneshank

The year-list has stuck again at one hundred and thirty-nine species. Perhaps we van hope to hear quail calling in the next few weeks they have already been heard in other parts of the county and are almost annual on the moor. There will be little chance of seeing them as the grass is now so very long.

Saturday and Sunday 2nd and 3rd June

Fledging Blue Tit (c) B&T Miller

Saturday was damp and cloudy in the morning but picked up in the afternoon, Sunday was beautiful from the word go. The warmth and the humidity accentuated the lush greenness of the moor, as grasses and herbage rush to flower and set seed.

The major excitement this weekend was provided not by a rare or unusual sighting, but by what we ended up referring to as our own particular “Springwatch” moment. On Sunday morning we were gripped by the dramatic fledging and first flights of six Blue Tit chicks. They flew from the nest box attached to the pumphouse at the start of the bridleway.

Snake and Blue Tits (c) Bark

It was rendered even more dramatic by the threatening presence of a fairly large and probably hungry Grass Snake. The snake was draped along the top of the door to the hut and was no more than inches from the box. I have in the past seen Grass Snakes both in and on top of this nest box and so the threat was a real one. The young birds kept partially emerging and then retreating all the while the parent birds were coming and going with food for the fledglings and feeding them in the entrance hole.

Being tempted out D&T Miller

They appeared to us to be trying to coax them out. The snake started to move up towards the box and was at once harried and mobbed by the parent birds. The snake must have leaned out too far and lost its balance altogether and fell away pursued by the chivvying parents. This was the cue for the custard coloured chicks one by one to leave the box and fly up into the surrounding willows.

Struggling through (c) Bark

One after another they struggled to get their shoulders through the hole before making their maiden flights and each time we thought that we had seen the last one until another head appeared in the entrance. We were watching for at least half an hour as this little drama unfolded. There was a Slavonian Grebe at Farmoor that I might have gone to look for, but I have seen them before and I’ve anything quite like this.

Anxious male and chick (c) Bark

Elsewhere there were still at least four Cuckoos chasing round and calling, soon we will be seeing the females waiting on bushes or sitting on fence posts along the bridleway looking for the chance to lay their egg in a temporarily vacant Reed Warbler nest. Half way along the bridleway there is a very loud and vociferous Garden Warbler that sings not from the depth of the bushes but right out in the open.

Singing Garden Warbler (c) JR

The Tern raft is very busy now with at least seven pairs of Common Terns in residence and like all tern colonies it can be noisy and there is a lot of bickering and screaming between the individual pairs.

Raft (c) Bark and Tern (c) JR

There was a female Shoveller shepherding five “shovellettes” or as was suggested…. trowels! The ducklings do look particularly odd with their oversize bills.

Shoveller and "trowels" (c) Bark

The Bitterns have almost stopped booming now and we heard just a few rather half-hearted calls as we returned from the second screen. A lone Lapwing was feeding close to the Ashgrave hide on the muddy edge that has been poached up by the cattle. Watching it carefully I noticed something I hadn’t seen before. Just as a Little Egret agitates the bottom to stir up food the Lapwing places its’ foot down and trembles it presumably to stimulate worms and other invertebrates to come to the surface.

Knee trembling lapwing (c) Bark

The year list moved on again with the addition on Saturday of the first Spotted Flycatcher of the year and today a Grey Plover over Greenaways.

Red-eyed Damselfly and Cardinal Beetle (c) Paul Greenaway

The lush growth has stimulated the insect fauna and we have seen Red eyed Damselflies, many more Four Spotted Chasers plus Cardinal Beetles lurking in the cow Parsley.

Turtle Dove preening (c) Bark

Spring Bank Holiday Weekend

Hepatic Cuckoo (c) Bark

Saturday and Sunday were in marked contrast to each other and separated by a night of torrential thunderstorms. Saturday had been damp and rainy with a nagging chilly north easterly wind blowing. Foolishly I had believed the forecasters and unprepared had ended the morning cold and damp. On Sunday morning after the overnight rain it was warm and humid and for once I was dressed correctly for the conditions! Over the last few weeks the combination of warmth and regular rain has led to an almost tropical lushness across the moor, the fields show shades of emerald green sprinkled with spatters of yellow buttercups.

Dog Rose and Iris (c) Bark

In the hedgerows on Sunday the first dog roses were flowering, and in the ditches, the first Flag Irises are waving their yellow banners. A green tide line is advancing upwards on the reed bed as the new growth pushes up through the drab dead stems of last year’s reeds. In the southern reedbed this is not such a smooth process. In the areas favoured for roosting by the Starlings in the winter the dead reeds are flattened and matted, and the progress of fresh growth is not quite so uniform.

Reed Warbler and Chiffy (c) Bark

Once again it was possible to hear nine of our ten warbler species within a short time of arriving. Sedge Warblers were especially vociferous in the carpark field and before I reached the bridleway I had counted five different competing males. The Turtle doves are still present and are still using the cattle pen area to feed but are less confiding than they were in other years. On Sunday morning a Bittern was booming from two different parts of the reedbed….at least that was how it sounded. The sound is very difficult to place exactly and if the bird turns its head it can sound as if it’s coming from a completely different direction. Every three or four minutes for the hour and a half that we were listening, the bird gave up to five booms, at times it was possible to hear the bird draw breath between the louder exhalations. On Saturday evening there were three individuals seen together flying over the reedbed but it is impossible to say if they were males or females.

Bittern on Closes (c) Tezzer

The best sighting on Sunday was a high-speed display by five Cuckoos at the second screen, all the while accompanied by a medley of cuckoos calls and bubbling laughing sounds. There were three males and two females one of which was the red hepatic bird. The chasing and the displaying went on for at least twenty minutes and at times the birds were just above our heads but moving so fast that it was difficult to get any reasonable pictures except by pure chance.

When I reviewed the pictures I did manage to take, I realised that the females had their tail feathers spread, presumably as part of the display, the pattern of white spots and the edging is very clear and perhaps a signal to the males. There was no time at the weekend when one could not hear a Cuckoo calling somewhere on or around the reserve. I met a keen birder from Yorkshire, an older gentleman, and he said that he had never seen more than three cuckoos together in his life. He was delighted to have seen the five birds together and so close.

All cuckoo Pics (c) Bark

I think that I am hearing more Lesser Whitethroats than Common Whitethroats this year, this is just a subjective judgement and I would be interested to hear if anyone else agrees. There are at least three calling males starting at the first screen and going on round to the second. The one nearest to the first screen was quite obliging singing out in the open but sadly only as a silhouette against a bright sky.

Lesser Whitethroat (c) Bark

When I arrived on Sunday morning I was aware of a racket of coarse grunts and croaks coming from the Roman Road. I saw two Carrion Crows flying round and calling over one of the larger Oaks, while other noises were coming from the treetop. Then a family of Ravens emerged and flew off across Greenways pursued half-heartedly by the crows. There were two adults and what must have been their juvenile offspring. There have been two adults seen frequently over the reserve and these must be the birds that we have seen flying off to the north and back again.

Treecreeper (c) Bark

After watching Springwatch last night and seeing the fate of the Treecreeper nest at the beak of the Great Spotted Woodpecker I am a little nervous about the chances of a Treecreeper nest that I have noticed. The adults are superbly camouflaged against the background but if I can spot it surely a sharp-eyed woodpecker could too.

A black Tailed Godwit is still out on Big Otmoor but as the vegetation grows is increasingly difficult to locate. A couple of Turnstones found by the RSPB on Ashgrave on Thursday are a welcome addition to the Yearlist, which has slowed up, we do not seem to have had the variety of waders visiting that some of the other sites have had, still there is always next week!

Some productivity (c) Bark

Saturday and Sunday 19th and 20th May

Reed Warbler (c) JR

A peerless clear blue sky, warm sunshine and gin clear air contributed to a beautiful weekend on the moor. There were lots of people down there to take advantage of it, when I arrived in the car park at six thirty a.m. there were already fifteen cars in the car park. On Sunday there was what I assumed to be a camera club outing, with a group of about ten people clicking their way along the bridleway. I am hugely in favour of everyone enjoying the reserve, appreciating it and wanting to preserve it. This is all the more important when there is the shadow of the express way hanging over the whole of the Otmoor Basin……of which more later in this posting.

Turtle Dove (c) Old Caley

Turtle Feeding (c) Old Caley

The only time that I worry about the increasing popularity of the site is when it runs counter to the welfare of the wildlife that it is set up to protect. The case in point is the way in which the Turtle Doves are being harried. The Turtle Doves on Otmoor can be very confiding, easy to see and photograph, both purring in the oaks and when feeding on the ground by the cattle pen. We have been scattering a fine seed mix for them on the open ground by the corral. It is important to encourage breeding in these birds as they are becoming increasingly scarce in the UK., the seed helps them to get into their breeding prime. Increasingly the birds have been being disturbed as they come down to feed by groups of people spending lots of time leaning over the gate waiting for them to appear, consequently they are not spending as much time as they should be taking advantage of this food hand out. The RSPB have put a sign by the gate explaining all of this and asking people not to linger by the gate. Sadly, it is being ignored and the RSPB are now considering roping off the area down to the gate. The birds can be seen easily from the bridleway and it is insensitive and selfish to disturb them just for the sake of a better picture.

Cuckoos (c) Old Caley

This weekend on Otmoor one could be forgiven for thinking that all the fuss from conservation groups about a declining Cuckoo population was a massive exaggeration. At one point there were five Cuckoos in the air at once, four males pursuing a female and even then we could hear yet another bird calling. The hepatic female was also seen well again this weekend. The large Reed Warbler population is what attracts them, and we assume that previous years breeding successes means more birds are returning to the place where they fledged. Radio tracked birds have proved to be very site faithful. Only the Reed Warblers might be less than happy to hear these birds that are so emblematic of summer.

Apprehensive Reed Warbler (c) Bark

Elsewhere we had either seen or heard nine of our ten warbler species by the time that we got to the first screen. The only one we failed to catch up with was Grasshopper Warbler, it seems to have a pattern of reeling when it first arrives and then going quiet for two or three weeks before striking up again. We appear to be in one of those quiescent phases at the moment. Whitethroats and Lesser whitethroats are currently particularly vocal and noticeable.

Whitethroat (c) JR

Black Tailed Godwit (c) Bark

On Big Otmoor there was a Black Tailed Godwit feeding and there were reports of a Garganey that was seen on both days of the weekend, but the vegetation and contours are such that it would have been a matter of luck to spot it out there.

Redshank ashgrave (c) Bark

There were very vociferous and active Redshanks over and on the field, their behaviour suggests that most of them have chicks to protect. There are still over a hundred lesser Black Backed Gulls commuting between the lagoon on Ashgrave and the Big Otmoor scrapes. It is impossible not to believe that their presence has a significant impact on the breeding success of our ground nesting birds. There are approximately thirty pairs of Black Headed gulls nesting on the eastern side of big Otmoor.

BHG (c) Bark

On the reedbed one of the male Bitterns continues to boom sporadically and indeed was spotted sitting out on the edge of the reeds calling and pretending to be a clump of reeds early on Sunday morning. Coots continue to behave like aggressive drunks in a pub near closing time. Two individuals started lashing out at each other and from the other side of the lagoon a different individual made its way over just to join in the fight!

Brawling Coots (c) Bark

Tufties...... above JR.... below Bark

Two more sightings of Otters were made at the weekend, on the southern lagoon ad crossing into the ditch near the pump house. They are of course completely unpredictable but always worth looking out for.

Marsh Harrier (c) Bark

It is impossible not to be aware of the signs that have sprung up in Beckley , in the surrounding countryside and on the approach to the reserve, that are protesting against the proposed Expressway between Oxford and Cambridge. The proposals suggest three possible routes and one of them would cause significant disturbance and disruption both to the reserve and to our closest neighbours. I and everyone that I speak to from the local birding community could not be more opposed to such a destructive, irresponsible and vandalising approach to development. Until there are more concrete proposals to challenge I will say no more, but should the Otmoor route become more favoured there will be very much more that can be said both in terms of ecology and in terms of the vital amenity which Otmoor is.

This field needs a road through it !

A verdant, open, wild space in what has become an increasingly crowded South Midlands. I will be attaching a couple of links to my blog one will explain more about the proposals and the threat they pose and the other is a petition protesting against the development. It is important to make our voices heard and remind the decision makers that we are also voters.

Apologies to my regular readers that this posting has been a bit of a rant but sometimes it’s necessary, next week more bird news I hope.

Small Copper (c) Paul Greenaway