Sunday 21st September: update from the North

Adrian Gray up in Wolvercote recently reported the following:

Nothing much to report on the Thames at the moment, though I did spend  an enjoyable five minutes or so watching the LITTLE EGRET manically splashing round this morning - I think there must have been a shoal of fry about, because it was like a cat on a hot tin roof! Haven't seen any  of your Yellow Wagtails (mostly because I haven't looked...), but have seen a number of Grey Wagtails this week, especially up by Godstow Lock.

Popped into the Gullet tonight for a few minutes, and got a couple of surprises. There's at least four small ducks in there which I think are Wigeon but round the back was the unmistakeable conks of two Shoveler. 

The first Wigeon of the season on the Gullet, courtesy of Adrian Gray

17th September

The high pressure system has continued to dominate our weather over the last week though it's not been quite as sunny as previously. The lack of change in the weather is mirrored in the birding which is sadly still pretty minimal. Even the Lapwings and Yellow Wagtails seem to have deserted us though the latter could be hanging out at the north end with the cattle. The most exciting birding at present comes about when you manage to find a roving feeding flock, usually along the Castle Mill Stream. There then follows ten or so minutes of intense birding, following every movement to see what it is. The usual mix is Long-tailed, Blue and Great Tits with several Chiffchaffs and perhaps a Goldcrest or two - sadly I've not had any more Flycatchers so far.

I bumped into a local birder who reported a couple of WHEATEARS (the first of the Autumn) and a PEREGRINE over the last week. There's also been a single LITTLE EGRET knocking about on the river.

Castle Mills Stream Moorhen

Even the mothing has gotten rather quiet of late - the cooler and clearer nights making for smaller catchers.

This Small Ranunculus has been the pick of the moths over the last week for me

I'm still trying to get to grips with the local flowers and plants though of course it's now getting late in the season but it gives me something to look out for on my daily walks.

I'd thought that I re-introduce the occasional Flower du Jour - this is Black Nightshade,
so called because it's mature berries are black

So we're very much waiting for some decent rain and a return of the floods. Of course last year we lucked in on a Yellow-browed Warbler in the autumn despite the lack of water. It would be great to have something similar grace our Patch to keep one's interest during this lean period.

9th September

September has started with a nice period of high pressure, giving us lovely Indian Summer days. Nevertheless there are definite signs of autumn where ever you look. On the Meadow, the usual non-water autumn birds are starting to accumulate with the Linnet flock now numbering about 50 birds, quite a few Meadow Pipits and between 20 and 30 Lapwings loafing around most days though I've not seen any more Golden Plover. We've been getting good counts of YELLOW WAGTAILS of late with up to 30 of them seen in recent days. Hirundine numbers seem to be reducing as birds start to move southwards and there are still plenty of Willow Warblers and Chiffchaffs in the hedgerows. There are plenty of Hawker dragonflies about at present with Southern Hawkers buzzing around in various locations including my garden. Along the Castle Mill Stream there are a couple of Migrant Hawkers  along with a single Brown Hawker though the Damselflies have now gone.

Migrant Hawker - on the far side of the Castle Mill Stream

Various exotic fungi are now starting to appear in Burgess Field, some of which have great names.

Lawyer's Wig...

...also known as Shaggy Ink-Cap

Weeping Widow (probably)

Of course there are lots of spiders around at this time of year as well with the Garden Spider the most common species in our garden present.

Garden Spider - the white cross on it's back is very distinctive

The highlight since my last posting though was a TREE SPARROW that was seen briefly by Steve Goddard in his Wolvercote garden. Whilst in days gone by this species used to breed on the Meadow in abundance now they're never normally seen there. The Tree Sparrow Project run by the Oxford Ornithological Society is making great strides in turning around the fortunes of this delightful sparrow and they are now starting to spread, often along the Thames so it's possible that we may get a colony re-appearing at some point. In the mean time this is a most welcome year tick in what are lean times on the floodless Patch.

28th August

Over the last few days I've been out most days visiting the Patch. There's not been much to report but I managed to find the first two GOLDEN PLOVER of the autumn. I was just watching them when suddenly they disappeared! The explanation was that when there's a predator about they tend to crouch right down and the cause of their concern turned out to be a HOBBY which unusually was on the ground nearby. As I started to walk towards it, it continually flew further away but always landing on the ground again before it finally flew off.

Apart from that over the last few days there has been a sub-song singing SEDGE WARBLER along the Castle Mill Stream recently (only the second one of the year on the Patch) and a nice family of fledged Reed Warblers in the Trap Ground reed bed.

No bird photos again so here's a female Banded Demoiselle that I took at the start of July.

Those of you with botanical leanings might be interested to know that the Oxford Rare Plant Group will be doing a survey of Creeping Marshwort on Port Meadow this Saturday 30th August. Creeping Marshwort is of course a very rare plant which is now in the entire country only found at Port Meadow and North Hinksey Meadow so it's important that it's looked after on the Meadow. If you'd like to come along to help out they're meeting at 10am by the Aristotle Lane entrance to the Meadow.

Creeping Yellow Cress - one of three Yellow Cress species to be found on the Meadow itself

21st August: Spotted Flycatcher

Over the last couple of days I've been checking out Burgess Field each afternoon to see if I can re-find the Redstarts but sadly I've had no luck. I did have a couple of YELLOW WAGTAILS fly over yesterday and today I found what looked like a family party of LESSER WHITETHROATS along the hedge so they may well have bred there.  There were also a couple of juvenile YELLOW WAGTAILS in amongst the horses on the Meadow itself today.

The highlight of today was when I went for a wander along the Castle Mill Stream on my way back home. I came across a roving mixed feeding flock which is always exciting as all sorts of species will join in such flocks at this time of year. In amongst the Warblers, and Tits were a TREE CREEPER and best of all a SPOTTED FLYCATCHER which was a real treat to see as this species is hard to come by on the Patch, being somewhat less than annual. Sadly it was on view for only about twenty seconds before it moved on.

No photos of the Spotted Flycatcher so instead here's a Rusty Dot Pearl,
an immigrant moth that I caught in my garden for the first time last night.

19th August: One Redstart

Encouraged by yesterday's success with the two Redstarts I went for a late afternoon walk around Burgess Field again. On the way out there I spotted a couple of people scouring the Port Meadow grassland carefully and I guessed that they were after the rare plant Creeping Marshwort (which is only found on Port Meadow). In Burgess Field the adult make REDSTART was still in the same hedge and I could well believe that the other one might be about too as there is a lot of cover in which it could hide. Apart from that it was the usual skulking warblers.

On the way home I met up with the two plant chaps who had indeed been looking for Creeping Marshwort though they'd had no luck. I offered to show them where I'd seen it five years previously (see here) as best as I could remember which they happily accepted. 

A reminder of Creeping Marshwort from August 2009

In passing they pointed out all sorts of other good plants that I didn't know. I've always felt that a short time with a good botanist would teach me far more than the hours of amateur bumbling around that I normally do. I left them searching with renewed vigour back on the Meadow though it's a pretty hard task to find such a small creeping plant in such a big area. Below are the plants that they showed me.

Strawberry Clover ...

...so called because the fruit looks a bit like a strawberry

Tubular Water Dropwort

Marsh Arrow-grass

19th August: Two Redstarts

Inspired by James Evry's great sightings recently I thought that I'd better get back out on the Patch to try and find something of my own. Against all odds I did actually manage to come across a couple of REDSTARTS in Burgess Field, in the field in the south east corner of the nature reserve. As is typical for late afternoon birding they were very skulking but I managed to see them well enough in the end to age them as an adult male and a first winter male. This is a hard species to get on the Meadow so I was very pleased to have seen them. Apart from that there were noticeably good numbers of young birds about with juvenile Goldfinches, Whitethroat, Willow Warbler and Chiffchaff all seen. One mixed feeding flock had well over twenty birds with a variety of Tits and Warblers all tagging along together. The hedgerows are heaving with berries in what must have been a very good summer for them so there's plenty about for the autumn and winter birds.

To round things off as I walked back a lovely HOBBY shot over the Meadow - a nice end to a pleasant afternoon's visit.

The Marbled Whites seem to have gone now in Burgess Field but I
thought that I'd share this one from a few weeks back

17th August: Whinchat & Redstart

James Evry sent me the following e-mail:

I thought I'd share some of my sightings from yesterday (17th) on Port Meadow: there was a Little Egret and a Kingfisher along the river, 2 WHINCHAT in the middle of the meadow, a big flock of Starlings amongst the cows and 1 REDSTART along the towpath.

The Whinchat and the Redstart are both year ticks - most welcome in this straightened times!

Here's a picture of some of the swallows on the boats from a few days ago

14th August

Apologies for the radio silence for a while but I've been away on holiday. Today I went for a long walk around the Meadow to see what I could find. There is of course no water at all and it's a fairly birdless desert sadly at present. Still there's always something to see if one looks hard enough. There are lots of wild flowers that I'm trying to get my head around and I'll continue to post some of them in this blog as we go along. There is a definite feel of autumn in the air as far as the birds are concerned: the Swifts have all gone and the Hirundines are all gathering in large numbers including some Sand Martins. There was a mixed flock of over a hundred round by the moored boats today including lots of juveniles so a successful breeding year for them. They were all swirling around after insects and then resting up on the boats. A juvenile Willow Warbler was working its way clumsily along the hedgerow at the southern end of the Trap Ground allotments, looking yellow enough to make one think of a Hippolais warbler though of course size and shape was all wrong. 

The juvenile Willow Warbler

When there's no flood water the only way to see waders is to walk along the river and sure enough I managed to winkle out a COMMON SANDPIPER and a LITTLE EGRET this way. Sadly, this habitat is a poor substitute for proper floods and unless we get a lot of rain soon we'll continue to have slim pickings on this front. There were only five Lapwings on the grass itself, a rather poor count from the 30+ that I was getting a couple of weeks ago. There was a very large flock of Starlings feeding in amongst the cattle at the north end of the Meadow which were spooked up into one of the Poplar trees were they continued to chatter away very noisily for quite some time.

So all quiet on the western front at present. What we really need now is a good period of prolonged rain otherwise sadly it's going to continue to be quiet for some time to come.

27th July

A female Southern Hawker dragonfly has been visiting our garden regularly of late. In fact the other day she found her way into our kitchen and couldn't get out easily. As she rested this afforded a great opportunity to study her at close quarters. After taking a few snaps she was guided safely back outside. She was none the worse for her visit and has been seen again on subsequent days, hawking around the garden looking for unwary insects to pounc on.

Today's Fleur du Jour is Hogweed. Whilst May finds the hedgerows full of feathery Cow Parsley, come July it's the altogether more chunky Hogweed that is to be found lining the wayside.

27th July

Today's Fleur du Jour is Lesser Stitchwort, an easily overlooked small white flower. It's five white petals are so deeply lobed that at first glance it looks like there are actually ten petals to each flower. This one was on the central path that goes through the souther section of Burgess Field Nr.

Lesser Stitchwort

24th July

Today's Fleur du Jour is Rosebay Willowherb. One of the Willowherb family, it can commonly be seen in many places in our country side. It's an example of a pioneer species due to its ability quickly to colonise newly cleared areas such as after a fire. In fact in North America it is known as Fireweed for this reason. This photo was taken on the path through the centre of the southern end of Burgess Field.

Rosebay Willowherb

19th July

Ian Curtis reported a couple of OYSTERCATCHERS in the field above the Perch Inn on Monday evening.

Adrian Gray writes:

Dunno if you've had a chance to visit the newly open Wolvercote Lakes (AKA the Gullet) yet. I was in there this evening and, although there's nothing much out of the ordinary at the mo, we had some stunning views of a kingfisher fishing. First one I've seen all year, so to be so close and to see it doing its thing was brilliant. Made my day!

 

Fleur du jour is Brooklime, a succulent herb that grows in the margins of streams and ditches etc. I found it along the Castle Mill Stream.

Brooklime

18th July Oxeye Daisy

Today's fleur du jour is Oxeye Daisy. A common plant to be found in lots of places in Burgess Field NR

Oxeye Daisy

Thursday 17th July

This wonderfully sunny summer that we're having is carrying on unabated. Of course this heat does have its downside: the floods are now completely dry with only a few Black-headed Gulls left picking over the dried up mud. There's been plenty of insect life to look at by way of compensation with a good selection of Ringlets, Marbled Whites, Meadow Browns, Essex and Small Skippers as well as the usual commoner species about. I even had a Ringlet in the garden the other day, a first for my garden. Down the Castle Mill Stream there are plenty of Damselflies with Common Blue, Blue-tailed and Red-eyed being the three species present. The first dragonflies are out now with a couple of Brown Hawkers and a Black-tailed Skimmer seen this week. I'm still mothing away though there's been nothing of particular note in the morning egg boxes recently. 

Black-tailed Skimmer

Egg laying pair of Red-eyed Damselflies

As I forgot the fleur du jour yesterday, here is one for today as well. It's Creeping Cinquefoil, a pretty little yellow flower that can create a carpet of cover where it is found. This one was on the main path in Burgess Field hear the first crossroads.

 

Creeping Cinquefoil

Tuesday 15th July Lady's Bedstraw

Today's flower du jour is Lady's Bedstraw, so called because it was traditionally used to stuff mattress as the smell apparently deters fleas. The flowers were also used to colour the cheese Double Gloucester and to make yellow dyes. In Denmark it's used to infuse spirits to make the drink bjösk. This one was found in Burgess Field on the path between the West Copse. 

Lady's Bedstraw

14th July Black Medick

Today's flower du jour is Black Medick, a small yellowish clover that can easily be overlooked. I found this one by the Castle Mill Stream just behind the Walton Well Road car park. It can be distinguished from other similar species by the small point on the tip of the leaf.

Black Medick

12th July Common Bird's-foot Trefoil

Today's fleur du jour is Common Bird's-foot Trefoil. This is a common member of the Vetch family, so called because the seed heads come in clumps of three which look like a bird's foot (see photo below).  It's quite a small plant ranging in height from 5 to 20 cm and it flowers from June to September. This one was snapped on the main path near the two copses.

Friday 11th July

Today's flower is Perforate St John's-wort. There are several St John's-wort species which are rather similar and one has to look at details of the stem and leaves etc. to make sure of the identification. The "Perforate" part of the name refers to tiny oil glands in the leaves which look like translucent windows or perforations. St. John's-wort is of course quite well known as a herbal treatment for depression. This plant is again along the central path northwards through the southern end of the reserve.

Perforate St. John's-wort

10th July Common Mallow

It's all quiet on the Meadow at present. The last pool of flood water is hanging on thanks to some recent heavy rainfall but it's only a matter of time before it dries up. There was a single LITTLE RINGED PLOVER there a few days ago but now it's just loafing Black-headed Gulls and the two COMMON TERNS who hang out there. 

Here's today's Fleur du Jour: the Common Mallow (Malva sylvestris), a common flower as it's name suggests which can be found along hedgerows and waste ground in all sorts of places. In Burgess Field it can be found for example along the hedge of the path that goes north through the centre of the southern end of the reserve.

Common Mallow