I realise that I have fallen seriously behind with my Port Meadow blogging once again and now there are so many exciting things to blog that it's going to be far too much to do it all in one hit. Therefore, in order to rectify this I am going to do a series of posts concentrating on some specific aspects of what has been seen recently though it won't necessarily all be in chronological order. This first post is about a very exciting White Stork sighting on Tuesday 20th April.
Elizabeth Stroud picked out a White Stork circling low over the Meadow at around 5pm. A few of us were on the Meadow at the time and thanks to prompt posting from Elizabeth we managed to get on the bird as it circled and then flew low up the river.
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| White Stork courtesy of Elizabeth Stroud |
It was lost to sight heading north over Wolvercote but seemed to be coming into land. It was eventually located by Thomas Miller near King's Lock in the surrounding fields and the rest of the Meadow Team managed to get to see it.
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| Courtesy of Manoj Nair |
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| Courtesy of Thomas Miller |
This bird is ringed (GB9A) and is part of the Knepp Project reintroduction in which a number of White Storks have been released into the wild in this country. They have been spotted in a number of counties in the southern half of England so it's possible that this (and other birds) may become regular features of the county landscape in months to come. The bird was seen to go to roost near Yarnton Mead and was still around first thing the next morning but after that news dried up on it. It was also reported first thing on 22nd April circling over the Meadow so it may well hang around for a while and might be feeding in some of the quieter fields surrounding the Meadow.
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