French Alps 1: hail, heat and heavy breathing

We drove from England into the super intense heat wave in southern Europe. By the time we reached Grenoble, temperatures on the road were high enough to make it frightening to get out of the car:

On our first full day in Grenoble, the severe temperatures generated thunderstorms. The wind felt like a hair dryer on the hottest setting, blasting hot air onto our faces. Pitch-black cumulonimbus clouds swirled above us before unleashing an incredible hail storm, with massive hail stones:

There was only one way to go: up. We headed up into the mountains, where the elevation is slightly cooling, bringing the temperatures back into the mere 30-degree celsius range.

Lac Achard

We walked up through the pine forests from Chamrousse to Lac Achard, at just over 1900m elevation. But even at this altitude, the crushing heat was oppressive. Instinctively we only stopped in patches of shade, grateful for the trees:

The lower meadows, just above Chamrousse, held a small flock of Citril Finches, dropping down to feed on seed heads:

There were small flocks of Common Crossbills in the pines, always vocal and mobile:

A nice female alpestris Ring Ouzel was collecting food on the path, the white-edged flank and undertail feathers just visible, forming a chequered effect:

Spotted Nutcrackers were in the forest. We had a number of flight views, but heard them calling regularly:

By the lake were singing Lesser Whitethroat and Blackcap and these Alpine Choughs dropped in, serenading us with their electronic flight calls:

My next mountain ascent was by bike, up and around the incredible balcony road of Combe Laval, in the Vercours massif. This is not a road for the vertiginous. There is a vertical drop of 500m/1,500 feet on the other side of this low retaining wall:

Alpine Swifts zipped past at eye-level and a pair of Kestrels were feeding noisy young in a nearby nest. The scenery and views were breathtaking:

But the real cycling challenge was the climb up from La Chambre to the Col de la Madelaine, at 2000m elevation. This 19km climb at an average 8% gradient is a climb that has featured many times on the Tour de France. On the final stage of the ascent, as I left the treeline, I became aware of birds calling. There were calling Water Pipits, joining the background chorus of Eurasian Skylarks, Meadow Pipits, Linnets and Goldfinches. I pulled over and made a recording of the Water Pipit calls, a recording that was ruined by my audible hyperventilation as I completed one of the hardest climbs in the Alps at high altitude!

The views from the summit were incredible, with the Mount Blanc massif visible to the north. As I drank in the views, a Quail began calling from the vegetation in the foreground, a real surprise at 2000m elevation:

Mont Blanc, 4807m, as viewed from Col de la Madeleine at 2,000m

Next: the Chartreuse Massif; life and death in the French skies.

Night Heron

Great to see the satanic red eyes of an adult Night Heron in Oxfordshire today, especially as the first wild bird for the county in recent times was only identified from photographs on Otmoor this spring and was not seen by anyone else. This bird was found at the southern end of Peep O’Day Lane, near Abingdon, by Tom Wickens, this morning, and was a popular draw for local birders.

Good work, Tom Wickens!

Devoured by dragons

Both the local meadows, Warneford Meadow and Churchill Meadow, were being patrolled by Britain’s largest dragonfly this morning, the huge Emperor Dragonfly. They cruised up and down the paths, glowing blue, aggressively investigating any passing insect, butterfly or human. Sometimes they approached at eye level and paused, hovering, a few meters in front of my face. Despite the fact that dragonflies have been pretty much unchanged for most of the last 300 million years, the experience was more akin to being scanned by a remote AI drone. The Warneford Meadow male had been in the wars and had damage to three of his four wings:

The Churchill Meadow male was immaculate. It had a bright green thorax, without the thick black lines and yellow “headlights” of a Southern Hawker, and with an obvious black line running down the length of the long, blue abdomen:

As I watched this male take patrolling flights up and down the path towards me, he suddenly jinked off to the left and plucked a Small Skipper butterfly from the air. Quickly settling down on a grass stem, the Emperor Dragonfly then proceeded to devour the butterfly, head first!

Below, using the front legs to finish the meal. Literally devoured by dragons:

Black-winged Stilt

Richard Rae has known Dave Lowe for a long time. Richard came down to visit Dave in Oxford on Saturday and, fortunately, said that he would like to try to see the Common Cranes on Otmoor. They duly came across a pair of Common Cranes on the reserve and then began to scan the area known as Big Otmoor for other birds.

That was when Richard exclaimed, “Am I going mad?“. Dave, immediately responded “Yes“. Dave has known Richard for a long time, he could confidently answer, without knowing any of the context of Richard’s rhetorical question. Richard followed up with “Is that a Stilt?“, whereupon Dave began taking Richard’s questions much more seriously. For there was indeed, a fabulous Black-winged Stilt, feeding on one of the pools close to the main bridleway:

The rain on Saturday afternoon seems to have brought this migrating bird down to feed in the wet pools and marshes of Otmoor, but it was keen to keep moving. After a short period of time, Dave and Richard watched the Black-winged Stilt depart, flying up into the cloud base, heading north. Perhaps the low cloud deterred it from continuing its journey, for fifteen minutes later it was back, on the same pool. Even better, I was just about to arrive on Otmoor. The Stilt then moved to feed further away, where the video below begins, before returning once again to its favourite pool, the final few scenes on the video, which are taken through quite a lot of reeds:

Richard “The Stilt” Rae (right) and Dave Lowe (centre) being photobombed by Wayne “Spotted Crake” Paes.

Stilts are not only unmistakable and beautiful birds, but are also very rare birds in Oxfordshire. Ian Lewington, the county recorder, passed on the fact that this was the fifth Oxfordshire record (and the eighth bird) after one at Shipton Quarry in June 1993; three at Radley in June 1993; one at Pit 60 in April 2012 and two there in May 2017. So, all in all, a quality find from team Lowe-Rae. Unfortunately, the Black-winged Stilt departed overnight and was not seen the following morning. This bird continues a remarkable run of rare birds on Otmoor this spring, following the long-staying Spotted Crake and the very brief Night Heron. A long-staying Purple Heron would be much appreciated next. It would help bury the trauma of the Blenheim Purple Heron.

Five chicks and seven eggs

This morning, a glorious still, warm morning under blue skies, saw me undertake the first of two annual bird surveys along the River Thame near Cuddesdon, my old patch. The first surprise was a pair of small dark duck flying towards me, one with a huge pale supercilium. Desperately hoping that these were Cuddesdon’s first Garganey, I got onto them in the binoculars only to discover that they were in fact a pair of Mandarin Duck. A good record, although this species has bred on the river here in the recent past.

The second major surprise was the first Cuddesdon record of Goosander, a female with five young were on the river. Goosander only began breeding in Oxfordshire in 2020, at nearby Waterstock. I contacted Nick Marriner and we compared notes. He had last seen the birds at Waterstock, a female with five young of about the same size, a few days ago. We agreed that it was more likely that these were the Waterstock birds relocating, rather than another breeding pair of Goosander in the county – but both hoped to be wrong about this! Here are the birds at Waterstock on 21st April:

There were good numbers of singing Reed Warblers in the margins of the river, lots of Whitethroat were back and singing, as was a single Lesser Whitethroat. There were no Kingfisher or Cuckoo on this visit, but I almost trod on this huge Mute Swan nest, temporarily unattended, although the pair quickly returned when they saw me, and I retreated quietly. Seven eggs!

My eBird list for this BTO Waterways Breeding Bird Survey, is here, https://ebird.org/checklist/S135900188

Spotted Crake

Wayne Paes was on the main bridleway at Otmoor, at dusk on Tuesday. The Otmoor soundscape is stunning in spring, with booming Bitterns, drumming Snipe, reeling Grasshopper Warblers and the loud calls of displaying Lapwing and Curlew. Wayne decided that he would try to record some of this atmosphere on his phone, thinking that he could use it to create an interesting and personal alarm tone. As he began recording, a loud, almost electronic, call rang out from the marsh in front of him: “whip – whip“. Wayne had just found a Spotted Crake. Then nothing for about 5 minutes, before the bird began calling, this time incessantly. It was indeed, a Spotted Crake.

For a long time I thought that I had seen Spotted Crake in Oxfordshire. I could recall a juvenile bird at a tiny reservoir one September, in the far north of the county, that fed on the shoreline in perfect autumn sunshine, even coming right out into the open on occasion:

However, when I entered all my sightings onto eBird a few years ago, this site, Wormleighton Reservoir, came up as being in Warwickshire. The very far northern tip of Oxfordshire meets Northamptonshire to the east and Warwickshire to the west. Turns out that Wormleighton Reservoir is about 500 meters west of the county line (Oxfordshire is in green on the map below):

This meant that I was especially grateful to Wayne for finding the Spotted Crake on Otmoor on Tuesday. At dusk on Wednesday, I made my way to the main bridleway on Otmoor and joined a great bunch of local birders: Wayne, Terry, Pete Roby, Ben Sheldon and Conor MacKenzie, amongst others. The previous day the Spotted Crake had begun calling at 20:47, although Ben Sheldon, ever-the-scientist, pointed out it that should start slightly later today, as there were two minutes more daylight than the day before. He was right. And the bird followed exactly the same pattern of singing as on Tuesday: two calls, as if to warm up, then five minutes of silence, before beginning calling constantly, once every second or so from 21:00:

Using only my phone, I recorded a few other night-singing species whilst we were admiring the sound of the singing Spotted Crake. Here is an audio-montage of Otmoor at dusk in late April, complete with Spotted Crake. It is a fabulous place:

Otmoor soundscape montage

A Christmas Jack Snipe

My youngest daughter suggested making the theme of this year’s Christmas cake the fabulous Jack Snipe that graced the Lye Valley earlier this month. After a bit of experimentation with modeling clay and spaghetti (not natural companions of the usual Christmas cake), we came up with this!

Happy Christmas to everyone!

Jack frost and the cold spell

As is so often the way in the modern world, it began with a phone message. The current spell of freezing weather has been tough for birds, with some species fleeing the worst of the snow in southeast England by moving west. All standing water has now been frozen for over a week, forcing wading birds to seek out flowing water to find unfrozen mud. Such conditions can force some birds into the city waterways too. I was out early on Saturday and Sunday mornings and by Monday morning had added the third Mute Swan and the first Golden Plovers for the Lye Valley area, as they flew overhead:

I was at work on Tuesday, when Tony Gillie messaged me, with some staggering news:

It was not just that this would be a remarkable species to see within Oxford city, but also that the photo was taken on a phone. The bird must have been standing next to the observer! I contacted Isaac West and we agreed to go and see if we could find the Jack Snipe at first light the following morning, Wednesday. Suddenly Sunday felt a very long time ago.

We arrived at the top pond at the head of the valley, in bitterly cold temperatures. Immediately we could see a number of Common Snipe rising from the small pools at the top of the valley, circling around and descending again. With these birds being so mobile, it was hard to put a number on them. A conservative count was four, but there could easily have been twice this number present. For context, there is only one other Lye Valley record of Common Snipe, a single bird from January of this year.

Common Snipe in vegetation in the Lye Valley ponds
Common Snipe in the culvert at the very top of the valley
Isaac checks the top pond. It really is this small.

We took a few steps closer, another snipe rose, I raised my binoculars, saw the short bill and the long dark crescent under the eye and I called “that’s it!” as the bird landed a short way down the valley. As we got onto the boardwalk some snipe flew back towards the ponds, so we returned to the top pond. We scanned the pond edges and Isaac called “I think I’ve got it!” There, amongst the frozen vegetation was a tiny, but magnificent, Jack Snipe:

The upperparts were very dark brown, making the long strong scapular stripes glow golden-yellow in the pre-dawn light. A passing Wren gives some impression of how small these birds are:

As the rising sun began to touch the top of the bird’s head, we noticed that there was frost on the wingtips and tail of this bird, literal Jack frost:

I put the news out to the local group and we were joined by a few other people, including Pete Roby:

The first ever Lye Valley twitch. Crowd control was not necessary.

Jason turned up, was greeted by sunshine and managed to get some superb video, as the Jack Snipe de-frosted and began to feed:

Even better, this Jack Snipe was the 100th species that I have recorded in the Lye Valley area and I could not have hoped for a better species for this landmark. It also takes the site list to 103 species, the illustrated checklist of all these species can be seen here. The Lye Valley bird list now contains seven species of wader, remarkable for an area with no significant open water. The cold spell is forecast to end today, Saturday, and a visit this morning produced more waders. Not one, but two Woodcocks:

This two-week period of freezing weather may have been tough for the birds, but has produced some incredible local patch birding.

Headington Whooper

Warneford Meadow, a warm, grey mid-November morning. One minute I’m wondering about the earliest singing Song Thrush I’ve heard by about four weeks. The next, I glance up, and there pure white against the evenly grey sky, is a flying swan:

Or as I put it at the time: “OMG, there’s a f******g swan!”

Mute Swan is a rare bird up here, where we have no open water. I’ve recorded more than twice as many Tree Pipits (5), as I have Mute Swans (2), in the last four years.

In these situations, I reach straight for my camera. The detail on flying birds it can pick up will be much greater than I will see, even with binoculars. I fired off a dozen or so pictures, then moved back to binoculars to watch the swan continue north-east, over the Churchill Hospital and away over Headington and out of sight. Was it the way the head and bill profile appeared long and smooth in the camera viewfinder that made a voice in my head say “that could be a Whooper?” Or maybe it was just the time of year? Either way, as I reached down to check the pictures on the back of my camera, I knew the identity of this bird was about to be resolved. I looked at my first picture of the bird and zoomed straight in on the head. It was a Whooper Swan!

It had the head profile of a ski-ramp, long and smooth, blending seamlessly into the forehead. Some yellow was just about visible on the bill. To me, the underside of the bill and the head appear pretty flat and in line with the underside of the neck in flying Mute Swans. Whereas in Whooper Swans the head bulges lower down, beneath the line of the neck in flight. This was very apparent in the field and in the pictures, above and below.

A Whooper Swan, over Headington – a record so unexpected, that it was not even on my fantasy list of potential new bird species! This is up there with the other great Lye Valley flyover records, Bar-tailed Godwit (April 2020) and Great White Egret (March 2022). These moments make local patch birding so rewarding. What next?!

The eBird list from today is here, a Woodcock flushed from Churchill Meadow was also notable.

Some east coast magic, Fife October 2022

A half-term family break to a friend’s house at Fife Ness. We drove up on Thursday 20th October, a filthy day. A deep low was situated just off the coast of Northumberland, pulling in strong winds from right across the North Sea onto the Fife coastline. Visibility was poor, the coast was battered by strong winds and rain. All the way up I was wide-eyed in anticipation. Twisting, invisible corridors of air began to connect Fife with birds migrating across northern Europe. Some of these birds may have come from Scandinavia. Some from much further afield. But all of these birds were suddenly pulled across the North Sea and in terrible conditions, sought the first land and cover they could find.

We arrived at Fife Ness on Thursday evening, I spent the last 30 minutes of light at The Patch, a small area of trees on the tip of the peninsular. Late October, rain on my face, an easterly wind in the sycamores. It does not get better. A Yellow-browed Warbler calls. The atmosphere crackles with anticipation.

The tiny wood is stuffed full of Goldcrests. Their constant high-pitched calls provide the backdrop. The sound of the easterly wind in the sycamores, the constant call of Goldcrests and behind them all, the distinctive dry rattle of a calling Red-breasted Flycatcher:

Red-breasted Flycatcher

Robins were everywhere, thrushes streamed overhead, Redwing calls a constant aerial soundtrack.

My most wanted was a self-found Pallas’s Warbler. The sycamores held Blackcaps (above), Chiffchaffs and a Lesser Whitethroat that was eventually ringed and proved to be a Siberian bird, blythi. Brambling and Redpolls passed overhead all day, Woodcocks zipped around. It was superb. Later in the afternoon I caught up with a dark shape at nearby Upper Kilminning, flitting away from the Robins, a Red-flanked Bluetail, always keeping under cover, always hiding the blue in the tail:

Birds were being found all around the peninsular. A Barred Warbler at Lower Kilminning, Yellow-browed Warblers at a number of sites. The nearby Isle of May produced a spectacular haul of 2 Bluetails, Pallas’s Warbler, Radde’s Warbler and tens of Long and Short-eared Owls. Over the next day, the easterlies faded, leaving behind them some extraordinary birds. The best, this Amur Stonechat stejnegeri which breeds no nearer than Mongolia.

The unstreaked orange rump, the dark brown mantle, contrasting with pale underparts and the pure white throat were all features I saw on the stejnegers at Westing on Unst in October 2019, but no doubt DNA analysis will have the last say on this bird’s identity.

Bird migration calmed down from intense high of the first few days. But even on calm days migration was apparent, these Pink-footed Geese from the Arctic, heading down the coast, over the forest:

I also visited the Hilton of all seawatching hides, the Fife Bird Club hide at the tip of Fife Ness. Having joined the club to gain access to the hide I was not disappointed: comfy office chairs on wheels (with back cushions too!); padded benches; a working and correct clock; lots of information boards, it was impressive! The sea watching was gentle, I did some simply because I live a long way from the sea. Gannets and Razorbills streamed past, Common Scoters flew past in small flocks, with a few Velvet Scoter and Long-tailed Duck past now and then too. Good numbers of Red-throated Divers were frequent, with singles of Manx Shearwater and Puffin being the highlights, alongside a small pod of Bottle-nosed Dolphins.

Velvet Scoter
Bottle-nosed Dolphins

The rest of the week saw some other nice moments. A beech tree reaching down to a small stream, its leaves cradling a rock surrounded by water. On the rock, under an umbrella of leaves, a Dipper, singing away above the sound of the stream:

We visited Tentsmuir Forest, Red Squirrels were hard to come by this year, but we glimpsed a few:

Dune Waxcap

The self-found Pallas’s Warbler may have to wait for another autumn. But the combination of those easterly winds, the sycamores on the coast, migrant birds everywhere with anticipation levels peaking, made for an amazing, intense and very special east coast migration experience.

Partial solar eclipse, peaking through the clouds.
error: Content is protected !!