Category: Oxfordshire Birding

Headington Waxwings

A whole winter of scanning tree tops and listening for a certain high pitched trilling call finally paid off again. As always it is at the most unexpected moments that Waxwings strike. On this occasion my family and I were making our way back from Bury Knowle Park where we had been admiring the magnificent newly carved Aslan. C.S. Lewis wrote the Narnian series just round the corner on the edge of Shotover Hill, Headington and this magnificent carving by Matt Cave adds to his existing wood carvings in the park. Best of all, it was paid for by the 5p carrier bag levy from the local Tesco store. As we neared our house, I was cut short in conversation by exactly the sort of high pitched trill that I have been listening out for. Even without optics or camera, we could make out 3 Waxwings perched among the upper branches of a tree just off Bateman Street:

I ran home to grab my camera and returned a couple of minutes later, slightly frustrated that the birds were just out of sight and sound of our house, leaving the garden list still Waxwing free. But the birds were still there and the sun had come out, so some distant record shots were possible.

Where I really wanted the Waxwings to perch was on top of a local landmark, about 200 metres up the road:

The Headington Shark, a symbol of the power of radiation descending from the sky following the 1986 Chernobyl Disaster, is a pretty eye-catching structure in a terrace of Victorian houses. Now imagine a line of Waxwings perched on the tail – that would be a picture!

 

Oxfordshire Little Bunting

I don’t know what surprised me most: the fact that a Little Bunting was unearthed wintering in Oxfordshire or that I took the decision to actually go and see it.  Having no other pressing plans on Monday morning and a few hours free before work, I made the short trip to Over Norton. For some reason I assumed that a cold dull January morning at the beginning of the working week would dampen down interest in this bird. I was wrong – virtually everyone I knew was there! It was amazing how many people could free themselves up at short notice if required. As such, it was a much more sociable and pleasant experience than I had expected. The bird itself would periodically drop down to feed on seed on the path and looked fantastic in the ‘scope. It was too distant and too dark for my camera, though you can get an impression of the small size from comparison with a nearby Chaffinch… 

Those who were digiscoping got some fantastic footage – see here. Little Buntings have a cracking head pattern, two dark tramlines on the head separated by a greyish median crown stripe, lovely chestnut ear coverts and face and a neat white eye-ring. But strangely, the feature that most caught my eye was the breast pattern. When the bird was standing and alert, with neck stretched up, the malar patches and the horseshoe like patch on the central breast framed a pure white throat with a distinctive pattern:

Well, something like that.  All in all, a very pleasant morning with some good people and a great local bird.

Oxford: Marston Road Waxwings

I was just leaving the house to take the girls to the park, when news arrived that the pink wave had finally broken in Oxford: there were Waxwings on the Marston Road. It was entirely expected, Waxwings had been reported from as nearby as Crowmarsh Gifford and Banbury in the last few days. But they had taken their time this year, holding back in the north and east, waiting until the days were just about increasing in length before penetrating into central England. I threw the optics and camera into the car and explained to my children that we were going to see Waxwings on the way to the park, without really working out how I would look after and 5 and 7 year old, whilst trying to see Waxwings, a habit that often seems to involve some hanging about. As it turned out, the 6 Waxwings were feeding on the berry tree opposite number 285 Marston Road as we pulled up, enabling the girls to see these lovely birds and me to attempt to murder some photographs in the late afternoon gloom:

Then, after all of 30 seconds of viewing, a jogger ran past the tree, flushing the flock, just as Pete and Mrs Roby and John Reynolds turned up. My girls then suggested that we should hold up berries to attract the Waxwings, a tactic that has worked for them with flowers and butterflies, but one that I gently suggested probably would not work with Waxwings: you have to be on Fair Isle for that level of approachability. 

Despite their efforts, the birds remained in the area, perching in tree tops in Haberton Mead and Jack Straws Lane, but only made a couple of brief visits back to their berry tree. I last saw the flock flying up the hill towards Jack Straws Lane at about 15:30, so still in the vicinity. I would expect more birds to turn up in Oxford over the next few weeks as the pink hordes continue moving south and west. Which means that every single trip to the shops becomes an opportunity to find a good local bird. That is the beauty of a Waxwing winter.

Watlington Hill Waxwing

My turn to get lucky! I’d love to say that following this autumn’s build of of Waxwings in the north and east of the UK, combined with recent northerly winds and last night being clear, that I deliberately positioned myself on a hill on the Chiltern escarpment to observe visible migration (actually, for future reference, that’s not a bad idea…) But today the reality was very different. I’ve spent recent Sunday mornings cycling increasing long distances out into the Chilterns and planned to extend that today. I was near the top of the very appropriately named Hill Road above Watlington, when the distinctive,  long, high-pitched trill of a Waxwing rang out from the sky above me and to my right. “Waxwing!” I instinctively called out, forgetting that in ascending Watlington Hill on a bike, speaking is not really an option: your lungs need every bit of breath they can get. Even better,  two seconds later it called again, this time high, from further behind me: the bird was in active flight moving south-west. This is, I think, the first record of Waxwing in Oxfordshire this year, though there are bound to more this winter and hopefully some of those will be more accessible, like the birds below (photographed in central Oxford in November 2012). Waxwings are fabulous birds and a Waxwing winter is a great winter. Bring it on!

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Released and free to wander

I have escaped from Cuddesdon and I am a free man. Released from the agricultural desert of the Cuddesdon countryside, today I decided that I would indulge myself in birds. It was a beautiful blue early May morning, I went to Otmoor and it was fabulous. I didn’t spend any time doing photography, just had a nice walk and pointed the camera at whatever came close, I concentrated more on taking in the spectacle of spring. It was the sounds that hit me first – Whitethroats, Chiffchaffs, Lesser Whitethroats, Sedge Warblers and Linnets all singing away. A brief purr of a Turtle Dove, Swallows and Swifts overhead.

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I immersed myself in the sounds of wet meadows in spring: drumming Snipe, the vibrating whirr of their outer tail feathers, backed up with a symphony of displaying Lapwings and Redshank: TomBedford.160501.8887

Reed Buntings were calling and singing from the trackside bushes:TomBedford.160501.8901

Grasshopper Warblers reeled away in the scrub:TomBedford.160501.8902

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Furtherdown the main track a tail-less Cuckoo flew along the hedgerow. Cetti’s Warblers belted out their frantic song. I joined Jon Uren for the walk to the screens, we picked out a Ringed Plover out on the mud and Jon filled me in on what I had been missing out on for the last 8 years. The only common warbler species that we didn’t record today was Garden Warbler, the reserve was otherwise full of warblers bursting with spring hormones and belting out their songs. Natural wildlife in all it’s spring glory. I could get used to this.

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