Boxing Day Treat

Breakfasting Otter  (c) Mark Chivers

Leaving before it had finished (c) Geoff Adams

Two birders new to the moor, Geoff Adams and Mark Chivers had a real treat this morning at first light. This lone Otter was eating breakfast in front of the first screen, looks like a nice tasty Rudd.
Thanks to them for the pictures and a very Merry Christmas to all our readers.

An Otmoor Murmuration

 

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Friday and Sunday 21st and 23rd December

Spiky place to sit (c) Bark

Fieldfares starting to forage alone (c) Bark

Both sides of a Chiffy (c) Bark

Two Shelduck on Greenaways Sunday morning (c) Geoff Adams

The weather forecast for Saturday looked so dire that I decided to and go down to the moor on Friday afternoon and take a look at the Starling roost.
I keep saying that the reserve is looking wetter than I can ever remember seeing it, and then it’s even wetter the next time I go down. Greenaways resembles a shallow lake with grassy islands and is currently the roost of choice for wildfowl. On Sunday there were at least eight hundred Golden Plover and slightly more Lapwings out there alongside the ducks. From time to time they were flushed by two Peregrines one of which was a particularly pale individual, the other was perched on the grass making the wildfowl very nervous.
The Bittern was out in the open from time to time in front of the first screen creeping warily along the edge of the reeds and occasionally freezing in its classic sky pointing “you can’t see me I’m a clump of sedge”pose. We pointed it out and let people see it through scopes, but those people who had never seen one before found it almost impossible to pick out. It is the most superbly camouflaged bird. On Sunday there was only a brief view of it, as it flew from one side of the main channel to the other.
There are now three Hen Harriers on the moor. There are two ringtails, one of which is a much larger adult female and and the other probably a juvenile male. The adult male is still present and was seen on Friday harassing the Starlings as they came in to roost. Also at the roost was a Barn Owl that flew right over our heads at the first screen and a pair of Ravens that flew over the reedbed calling to each other.
The hedgerows are still busy with mixed tit feeding parties often accompanied by Goldcrests and Chiffchaffs. There are assorted finches on the desiccated seed heads and the winter thrushes are much more spread out rather than moving in tight flocks. Stonechats are around the reed bed and on the pathway to the first screen.
As for the Starling roost itself, it can be spectacular but can also be something of an anti-climax. It is difficult to understand and to predict what will stimulate a really amazing display or what will provoke them into just diving straight into the reeds with no shape changing show at all. The one on Friday was excellent despite the heavy overcast sky and lack of a brilliant sunset.
Just one more weekend now before the new year and I doubt that there will be any new species to add to the one hundred and fifty two that we have seen on the moor this year, but who knows, there is still time.

Saturday and Sunday 15th and 16th December

Wildfowl over the first screen (c) Bark

One of the Chiffies (c) Bark

and another (c) Bark

Green woodpecker by the first screen (c) Bark

Snipe calling and flying (c) Bark

Another really good weekend on the moor with good weather and lots of birds to look at.
The highlight was probably the smart adult male Hen Harrier that was seen on both days quartering the fields. The ring tailed bird was also present occasionally during the day and later causing consternation at the Starling roost. Early visitors to the reserve are reporting a Barn Owl hunting regularly in the Carpark field. We also saw the first Short eared Owl of this winter on Sunday morning. It was being harassed by three corvids high over the reedbed, it then appeared to have had enough and started pursuing one of them very aggressively.
Peregrines were present on both days and frequently flushed the large flocks of Lapwings, Golden Plovers and assorted Gulls that were feeding on the receding floods in the fields to the west of the visitor trail. It is not often that we get the chance to scrutinise large numbers of gulls but on Saturday we were able to pick out two adult Yellow Legged Gulls from among the mixed Herring and Lesser Black backed flock. Also in the same location feeding on the grass were over fifteen Pied Wagtails and more than twenty Meadow Pipits.
Wildfowl are building up after the freeze last week and there were substantial numbers present again by Sunday. They seem to be concentrated out on the north eastern side of Greenaways and also on the western edge of Big Otmoor. As the floods recede elsewhere I expect the duck numbers on the reserve to rise still further. Amongst the Lapwings and Golden Plovers on Greenaways were a number of Ruff and when the Lapwings flushed there were at least three Dunlin with them.
There were at least four different Chiffchaffs feeding on the edge of the reedbed near the first screen, it was interesting to see just how variable they are in terms of tone, length and strength of the supercilium and amount of yellow they show. Several Goldcrests were active in the hedge along to the second screen, and with a little patience could be seen well. Ravens passed over on both days cronking loudly.
Providing the Mayans got it wrong I fully expect to be back on the moor next weekend and look forward to seeing what we can find.

Saturday and Sunday 8th and 9th December

Lapwings (c) Bark

Even more Lapwings (c) Bark

Low Kite flypast (c) Bark

Mixed wildfowl flushing (c) Bark

Bullfinches back in the hedge to the second screen (c) Bark

Male Stonechat (c) Andy Last

Female Stonechat (c) Andy Last

It was a very “birdy” weekend. I can’t remember a time during the last five or six years, when there was so much water on the moor, it has become an absolute paradise for wildfowl. Duck numbers, particularly Teal and Wigeon have risen very sharply and I estimate that there are at least one and a half thousand of each species on the reserve. The bulk of them are on Greenaways with another substantial group out on the Flood Field. I addition to the birds on the reserve there were frequent flushes of wildfowl out on the flooded MOD land. They were restless and frequently disturbed by the attentions of two Peregrines that were patrolling the site. There were at least fifty Pintail, and slightly higher numbers of Shoveller. I was very interested to find one hundred and fifty eight (yes I did count them) Gadwall in front of the second screen on Sunday, I can’t remember having such a large group of them before on Otmoor. Oddly there do not seem to be any Pochard around unless I failed to notice them in the general melee of ducks.
Lapwing and Golden Plover numbers have also risen with several flocks of birds resting up on the small patches of grass that are starting to emerge from the floods on the western side of the path to the second screen. There were also substantial numbers of Gulls feeding on the floods.
There was further good news when a couple of north Oxfordshire birders re-found two of the Bearded Tits up by the second screen, in addition they also had flight views of a Bittern on one of the smaller reed clumps out on the western edge of Greenaways. I was particularly pleased as, because they had not been reported for the last three weeks, I thought it likely that they had gone. Dunlin and Ruff were on Greenaways associating with Lapwing and a smaller party of Goldies. A Kingfisher was present near the hide as were a small flock of Meadow Pipits.
A couple of Chiffchaffs are still in the hedgerow along the bridleway and a small party of Bullfinches have taken up winter quarters along the path to the second screen, where they can be found every year.
Birding on the moor was curtailed mid morning on Sunday as we made a quick dash to Farmoor to see the Falcated Teal. Why is it always the case that when something special turns up in the county I am almost guaranteed to be as far from the carpark that it is possible to be? Perhaps it might relocate to Otmoor but at the moment it would be virtually impossible to find in the throng.

Saturday and Sunday 1st and 2nd December

Meadow Pipit

Goldfinch and Teasels

Freezing Dawn

Stonechat

Stonechat pair

Smart Starling

Restless Teal Flock      All pics this week (c) Bark

The moor had an arctic feel this weekend, the floods of earlier in the week had frozen overnight and bright sunshine sparkled on the hoar frost and icy scrapes. On the reedbed the southern lagoon was frozen on both days but there was still open water on the northern one and in the River Ray.
Fieldfares and Redwings are the most noticeable birds in the carpark field and are increasingly feeding out on the open pastures now that the berry crops are disappearing. There are also more Meadow Pipits than of recent weeks and on Sunday some of them could be seen picking scraps of food from the surface of the ice. Stonechats are still hanging on and were very easy to see by the first screen.
The Whooper Swans from last weekend moved on fairly rapidly but on Saturday, and adult and a juvenile were found out on the flooded fields to the west of the path to the second screen. They are most likely to be different individuals to the four adults seen last week. They flew off towards the north of the barn and flood fields, where there are extensive flooded meadows.
The Hen Harrier is still present and seems to have a very wide ranging circuit that it follows to hunt, but can usually be found at the starling roost at the end of the afternoon.
Lapwing and Golden Plover numbers are steadily increasing but with the very watery conditions in the Otmoor basin they are widely dispersed in smaller flocks of several hundred.
Large numbers of wildfowl were frequently flushed by one or other of the pair of Peregrines that seem to have taken up residence on Greenaways. The large female spent hours on both Saturday and Sunday sitting on the fence posts to the right of the stone track occasionally accompanied by a much smaller male that sat on the ground.
There was also a predator of some kind or another that kept flushing the three or four hundred Teal that were out in the middle of the northern reedbed. It didn’t seem to be an obvious raptor and may have been a fox or even the Otter which has been seen several times during the last week. Notably putting on a display of fish catching and fish eating right in front of the first screen........to someone who didn’t have a camera!
As we go on into December it will be worth checking the Greylag flock as it is about this time of year that we can expect Whitefronted Geese to turn up and conditions look good for them.
For those who may be interested I will be publishing a special supplement to Otmoor Birding this week, which will feature a superb set of pictures of Otmoor taken by RSPB staff member Zoe Edwards, they were taken from a light aircraft earlier in November and show just how much work has gone into the profiling and re-wilding of this landscape.

I have just recieved an E-mail from Steve Roby concerning the Starling roost on Sunday which I reproduce in full:

"The starling roost was good fun yesterday afternoon.

I don't know if you checked out the area around the flood field but there must have been an area of open water, somewhere towards Murcott and Fencott. Shortly before 4pm hundreds of wildfowl rose into the air, presumably due to a raptor. They didn't settle and eventually gained height and split into numerous groups. There were still flocks of gulls flying west, so for a time the sky was full of birds if you looked north-east. Many of them flew overhead including vocal wigeons, which added to the atmosphere.

By now the starlings had started gathering. They had left it quite late and the light was already fading but they put on a very good show for 20-25 minutes. The flock gathered into tens of thousands during this time and the harrier put in a couple of appearances before it was all over around 4.25."