Birds on a Branch......and January Update.

The Branch

There is a row of mature oak trees that forms the border between the path beside the reedbed and Big Otmoor. One of these old trees, the nearest to the first screen, has a twisted, scarred and naked branch that reaches above the canopy.

   

Used by everything from Kites to Blue Tits

This branch has a deeply etched surface and a jagged shape not unlike a negative image of a bolt of lightning.

Its height and position mean it is a superb lookout point, a song-post from which to broadcast calls or perhaps just a safe staging post along the hedge.

Cuckoos use it to broadcast their calls.

Over the years I and many other birders have seen a variety of different birds taking advantage of this perch, from Red Kites at one extreme to Blue Tits at the other and indeed many species in between.

Both common Woodpeckers use it.

We have photographed them when we could although some of the more unusual birds were missed, like a Merlin that flew just as I lifted the camera, or the Hoopoe seen in June 2008.

 Kestrels hunt from it.

Starlings use it when they come out of the roost.

  

 Passage Wheatears and newly arrived Swallows perch there.

 

   

It really is an Otmoor icon!

I have not added individual credits to these images for fear of getting accreditations wrong, suffice to say that some of the images are mine, some JR's, some Mark Chivers and one at least Trish Millers. If anyone has images of any other suitable birds I would love to add them to this blog entry. Bark.

Hungry Fieldfare (c) JR

January Roundup. .

Mallard over a frozen reedbed (c)Bark  

 

A period of thaw and freeze with the latest freeze just having ended after a couple of hard frosty weeks. Water bodies across the moor were rock solid  with just the ring ditch still flowing. There is now a lot of water across the reserve, with the flood field finally living up to its 

   

 Lapwings and Goldies

Before the latest  freeze bird numbers had risen to an estimated ten thousand birds across the whole moor. There were at least three thousand Golden Plover and a similar number of Lapwings, the remaining numbers were made up of wildfowl. Five or six hundred feral Geese are grazing across Ashgrave and Big Otmoor and there several thousand ducks with over a thousand Teal and a slightly smaller number of Wigeon. Shoveller numbers finally went up, having been uncharacteristically low during the late autumn. In addition to the birds I’ve just mentioned there were at least fifty thousand Starlings arriving each night to roost in the reedbed.

 

  Snipe have  stuck it out (c) Darrell Woods

   

During the latest ten day freeze the majority of waders and wildfowl left the moor for the rivers or areas of deeper open water. They now appear to have returned and last weekend we estimated that there were over seventy Pintail amongst the other duck species.

   

Luke and Friends. 

Another returnee is “our” leuchistic drake Pochard “Luke”. We have been reporting on him and watching him since 2015, he was out on the northern lagoon with three other drake Pochards. Golden Plover and Lapwing numbers have not got back to where they were yet but are well on their way and February is usually when we see their numbers peak. The first Ruff of the year were also reported last weekend and it will not be long now before we see and hear returning Curlew.

We heard a couple of Cetti’s calling on Sunday along the bridleway and by the path to the second screen a reassuring thing to hear after a string of days when the temperature failed to get above zero. The Starling roost appears to have collapsed now as is normal after a spell of very cold weather. When the water across the reedbed freezes roosting birds are vulnerable to predation from mammalian predators coming across the ice and taking them from below.

 

 Yellowhammer (C) TomNL

We are still seeing similar numbers of raptors across the moor including the Ring-tailed Harrier, Peregrines and Merlin. The winter finch feeding programme is attracting large numbers of Linnets, Reed Buntings and Chaffinches, along with a scattering of other seed eaters. They in turn are attracting Sparrowhawks in search of an easy meal.

Waiting for lunch

The reed cut that has been carried out in the southern reedbed does not seem to have pushed the otters away although they were not so visible or  obvious during the freeze. They have attracted large numbers of people to see them and almost become stars on social media!

Young Otter (c) Bark