Sunday 7th January

It's been quite a good start to the new year on the Meadow. The floods have been increasing each day until now we're in full blown "lake mode" with the waters stretching a fair way up towards Wolvercote now. I've paid a few visits to the Meadow and was rewarded for my efforts with a splendid WHOOPER SWAN a few evenings back. Whoopers and Bewicks are pretty rare on the Meadow, certainly less than annual and it's been several years since our last one so I was very pleased to see this adult bird on the 3rd.

Whooper Swan

It was an amazingly "birdy" visit actually, with the floods then being just right for the geese and in fact we had all the species that we might reasonably expect. There were 150 or so of the usual Home Counties BARANACLE GEESE, 9 WHITE-FRONTS (the usual feral birds), 3 BAR-HEADED GEESE as well as countless Greylags and Canada Geese. There was even a feral BLACK SWAN as well. Duck numbers were large with quite a few PINTAIL and a red-head GOOSANDER. Ian Curtis also reported a pair of drakes of this species on Wolvercote Lakes this week. On the Meadow floods the next day there were also a couple of drake POCHARD, a rare bird on the Meadow which we only ever get when it's really flooded and lake-like.

Apart from this it's mostly been about getting the usual stuff on the year list. I did actually see (rather than just hear) the Medley Farm NUTHATCH near the boat moorings. The best of the rest was a sighting by Roly Pitts of the over-wintering STONECHAT down at the southern end of the Meadow. My guess is that it's mostly spending time in the allotments but that it occasionally comes out onto the Meadow itself for a bit of variety. There have also been a couple of over-wintering Chiffchaff sightings as well.

Stonechat courtesy of Roly Pitts

So a nice start to the new year. This coming week I'm going to try to concentrate on the gull roost as the Farmoor Iceland Gull was seen to fly over the hill towards the Meadow and with the huge water expanse it's a great chance to see some of the rarer county gulls on the patch. 

Do please keep reports coming in to me and I'd be particularly interested in things like Brambling, Marsh Tit, Redpoll, Tree Sparrow and even Greenfinch (which has suddenly become a bit of a rarity thanks to the dreaded disease that's been wiping them out).