19th May

On an evening visit to the Meadow today I found that the floods had finally completely dried so that marks the end of the spring passage season. There have been a few more snippets of interest to report: last week I had a good run of Little Ringed Plover each evening with counts of 3, 2, 4 and 1 on consecutive visits. There were also the usual Sheduck and one evening the Ruddy Shelduck pair were there as well which was nice to see. There's been a lone, rather sick looking Wigeon who was actually still there today, who has been loitering for the last few days. Apart from that it's the usual smattering of Black-headed Gulls and Pied Wagtails.

The two Ruddy Shelduck

Away from the floods there have been quite a few more Cuckoo reports. They've also centred around the canal area ranging from St Edwards playing fields down to the Trap Grounds area. It's actually turned out to be quite a good spring for them in the end.

For those who might be interested, I've done a review of the spring season on the Meadow on my other "Gnome's Birding Diary" blog. In  it, I give a countdown of the top 7 birds of the spring passage: if you want you can read it here.

So now that the birding season is drawing to a close it's time to turn our focus on flowers and insects. I'm still busy moth trapping away though so far without anything of particular interest. Nicola Devine has been taking some great photos of the Odonata life in the Trap Grounds which you can see on the Trap Grounds Wildlife blog as well as on the new Oxon Dragonflies blog. It will soon be time to start looking for Bee Orchids in Burgess Field once more as well as the emergence of our summer butterflies. There's still plenty to see out there!

Broad Bodied Chaser, courtesy of Nicola Devine.