30th January - Iceland Gull

Today was a good day's birding. To start with I went out mid morning to the Trap Grounds where it was really striking just how much bird song there was - birds were singing everywhere I went. I particularly wanted to see if I could catch up with some Reed Buntings that had been reported along the wildlife corridor there. I'd tried and failed yesterday but today I manage brief views of a male bird. This species is rather localised on the patch and although it is seen every year I'm always pleased to catch up with it myself. Whilst I was waiting for the Buntings to put in an appearance I saw my first Chiffchaff of the year, certainly an over-wintering bird rather than a migrant of any sorts.

Later in the afternoon I went to the Meadow to have a look at the gull roost for the first time in quite a while as it's been frozen for much of last week. I was duly rewarded with a great juvenile ICELAND GULL in a moderately sized roost. This is the first white-winger that we've had in quite a while so it was nice to see one again on the Meadow. Also present was a 2w YELLOW-LEGGED GULL, a SHELDUCK, four GOOSANDER and a couple of REDSHANK.

A video grab of the bird. Unfortunately the light was rather poor by this stage...



...and the original video


29th January

I'm still chipping away at the year list, an activity which always livens up an otherwise rather dull month. To that end I managed to find a NUTHATCH at Medley farm last week and a Fieldfare that I heard fly over the Castle Mill stream which Mary MacDougall later saw over by Burgess Field. Sparrowhawk has now been seen on a few occasions and Steve Goddard has reported Stock Dove in his garden up in Wolvercote. Finally this morning I managed to find a Coal Tit singing away in a neighbour's garden - this is a surprisingly difficult species to catch up with on the Patch.

One of the regular Redshank roosting on its usual perch

So what do we still need that I would expect to get at this time of year? Here's the list of things to keep an eye out for. Many are only a matter of time before they turn up. Do let me know if you seen any of them.

Great Crested Grebe (surprisingly haven't seen one on the river so far)
Lesser Redpoll
Chiffchaff
Sky Lark
Little Egret
Peregrine
Curlew (usually in February)
Tufted Duck (Wolvercote Lakes?)
Black-tailed Godwit
Dunlin
Gadwall



19th January

I haven't done much checking of the gull roost of late and on the odd occasion when I have the roost size has been derisory. Still I thought that I'd give it a go though once again numbers were abysmal. However what they lacked in quantity they made up for in quality when a splendid 3rd winter CASPIAN GULL was pick out of the flock by Will Langdon.



Apart from this smart gull, there were 3 REDSHANK, half a dozen or so SNIPE, a couple of COMMON GULLS and a dozen or so GOLDEN PLOVER. In addition a SHELDUCK was reported earlier on in the day.

17th January WeBS Survey

It was time for the monthly WeBS survey today. In rather cold conditions I counted the following totals

Mallard 77
Moorhen 11
Kingfisher 1
Goosander 1
Mute Swan 2
Redshank 3
Grey Heron 1
Cormorant 4
Canada Goose 3
Wigeon 1068
Shelduck 3
Pintail 5
Shoveler 2
Teal 510
Golden Plover 2
Lesser Black-backed Gull 8
Black-headed Gull 66
Greylag Geese & hybrids 207

I also encountered a nice flock of Siskins in the spinney on my way back home.

The year list is coming along though there are still a few things which I'm sure must be around but I've not yet come across them. At the end of the month if there's anything still outstanding I'll let people know.

10th January

I'm chipping away at the year list, ticking off the relatively common birds that I'd expect to see at this time of year and have now got the year list up to 57 though there are still lots of easy ticks around that I just haven't personally come across yet.

When it was frozen a few days ago I headed over to the Trap Grounds to see if I could winkle out a WATER RAIL and I'm pleased to report that not only did I hear one but I actually saw one scuttling between the reeds in front of the screen pool. 

A couple of people reported the presence of a PINTAIL on the floods at the start of the year and today there were a pair of drakes asleep on the floods along with a couple of YELLOW-LEGGED GULLS.

The highlight of the last few day though was a flock of 30 BARNACLE GEESE, spotted by Steve Goodard late on yesterday though as before they were gone by first light.

A Grey Heron along the Castle Mill stream

Review of 2016

By all measures 2016 was a good year for Port Meadow birding. For starters the year list came it at 133 which is a good solid total and we managed a couple of nationally scarce species in the form of a Spoonbill and a Yellow-browed Warbler. So what were the highlights of the year?

The first couple of months consisted mostly of the usual fare with perhaps a Raven being the most noteworthy addition to the year list. But in March we really struck patch gold with a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker in the Trap Grounds. This is a real patch Mega and is certainly rarer than Spoonbill or Yellow-browed Warbler on the patch. Sadly the bird didn't hand around and was chased off by a territorial Greater Spotted cousin but it did offer some great views in the Trap Grounds for a few minutes.

The Lesser Spotted Woodpecker

In March the first migrants started arriving back and we were treated to a couple of Avocets that dropped in for the evening on their way north.

Avocets on the floods

We had a Brent Goose drop in to stay for quite a while in spring. This is quite a rare Goose in the county (though it usually manages to make its way onto the county year list) so I was pleased to have it grace the patch for a while. Also good birds for March were a Sanderling and some Red-crested Pochards

The long-staying Brent Goose

April produced another patch Mega in the form of a Sandwich Tern. This is only the second record ever on Port Meadow of this species which is an annual passage migrant in the county but really hard to catch up with as they so often are just seen flying through places like Farmoor. This one roosted on the Meadow so lingered for a few hours at least.

The only other Meadow record of Sandwich Tern was back in 1995

Little Gull is just about annual on the Meadow though only usually through one or two sightings a year so I was pleased to find one in mid April on the floods - it turned out to be the only one of the year. Also in this vein is Garganey which turned up mid month as well - again usually annual though only thanks to one or two records. The Meadow is one of the top spots in the county for passage waders and we managed this year to get just about all the rarer ones. Towards the end of April we managed to add Grey Plover, Bar-tailed Godwit and Knot to the year list.

Whether May is any good on the Meadow each year depends very much on the state of the floods. We were lucky this year with reasonable floods still present in this crucial spring month and this water pulled in a Wood Sandpiper - the first we've had in a few years recently. However, the 10th of May 2016 will go down as one of the best days of patch birding on the Meadow in a long time. I wrote at the time:

It was a "perfect storm" of good prevailing southerly winds for the last few days, early May being the peak for spring migrant passage, the floods looking absolutely perfect and drizzly overcast weather all day to bring in a keep down any passing waders.

We managed 66 waders of 9 different species including Bar-tailed Godwit, Knot and Sanderling. It was really amazing! Nothing really extraordinary on paper but normally you have to work pretty hard just to get one bird of these species in a given month let alone multiples of all of them on the same day!

Two of the Knot, part of a huge wader fall

A day later we managed an impressive 47 Ringed Plover - an amazing count for an inland location. Sadly after that sightings started to dwindle as we headed towards the summer doldrums though we did manage to sneak a Spotted Flycatcher onto the list - always a hard bird to get on the Meadow. We finally managed our first national scarcity of the year when a Spoonbill was seen flying over the Trap Grounds in the last week of May. They often seem to turn up at around this time of year on the Meadow.

In the summer months I generally turn to insects and flowers to keep me occupied. Whilst this year was pretty poor for moths I did manage to turn up a couple of county-wide interest with a Yellow Belle and Psychoides filicivora (a fern-loving micro) as well as a Toadflax Brocade (though they're pretty much annual now in the county). Thanks to some good coverage in the Trap Grounds a couple of Silver Washed Fritillary butterflies and a Red-tipped Clearwing moth were found in August both great finds for this location.

Red-tipped Clearwing courtesy of Nicola Devine

August did manage to provide some bird action with already-returning migrants passing through. The bird highlight of the month was a female Blue-headed Wagtail which was in amongst the cattle with our own Yellow Wagtails.

It took quite an effort to pin down this highly mobile bird long enough to get a photo

September turned up some good migrants with Tree Pipit, another Spotted Flycatcher and a Redstart but the highlight of the month was a great Yellow-browed Warbler find up in Wolvercote though sadly it was just passing through and only the original finder ever saw it.

October and November were very quiet months as we had no flood waters at all and all the passage action has long since finished. Finally towards the end of November we got the waters back and we were soon rewarded with our first Caspian Gull of the season. It turned out to be a pretty good period for this tricky gull and we had quite a few more of them up until the end of the year. The feral Home Counties Barnacle Geese also put in an appearance in December to round things off but apart from gulls there was little else of note.

A cracking first winter Caspian Gull
So that was the year. As is so often the case on the Meadow the action rather comes in fits and starts and is very dependent on the presence of the floods. Looking back on it though I'd definitely classify 2016 as a good solid year for the Meadow.

It now only remains for me to award the much-coveted Port Meadow Bird of the Year award. Whilst this often goes to just the scarcest bird that's been found this year there were a number of contenders including Yellow-browed Warbler, Spoonbill, Lesser Spotted Woodpecker and collectively all 66 waders on the 10th May (because it was such a special day). And the award this year goes to.... the Lesser Spotted Woodpecker, for not only being a Patch Mega but also for providing unusually good views of what is normally quite a secretive species.

Sadly it couldn't be here to accept the award....
Finally, I'd like to thank everyone who helped to contribute to the birding effort on Port Meadow. I'm lucky to have a number of people send in information regularly and whilst I don't always have time to respond to e-mails, all the information is always very much appreciated. Let's hope that 2017 is another great year for birding on Port Meadow.


4th January

Firstly a Happy New Year to all my readers! I'm intending to do a review of last year at some point but haven't had the time so far.

Sorry for the lack of posts over the last couple of weeks but the festivities rather got in the way and then I was away for a few days over the New Year. I'm still working my way through getting the new year list up and running so can't provide a total yet but the highlight of the year so far was a splendid female RED-CRESTED POCHARD that was found by Nicola Devine yesterday. This species is less than annual on the Meadow so it's great to have it on the list already.

Female Red-crested Pochard courtesy of Nicola Devine (c)
I went for the first gull roost scan of the year today and was rewarded with no less than five YELLOW-LEGGED GULLS (3 adults and 2 second winters). Seven Golden Plover flew in to keep the Lapwings company and there were seven GOOSANDER which came in to roost.