Otmoor Starlings

Tuesday (30/12) was the perfect opportunity to finally get over to Otmoor near Oxford enjoy the impressive Starling roost. Reports over the weekend suggested that an estimated 70,000 birds came in. That was the only persuasion I needed.

Decided to slowly amble round the reserve and finish off with roost. I stuffed a few left over Mince Pies into my pocket and set off from the car park. It was a slightly gloomy day and was to be quite honest pretty bloody cold, as it always seems to be there!

Spent a bit of time at the feeding station with the camera. The birds appeared to be oblivious to me being there and I enjoyed good views of a couple of Great Spotted Woodpecker and a Coal Tit, apparently quite scarce here.

After standing there a fair old while and not being able to feel my feet with cold, I moved on. Slowly wandered around finding a cream-crown Marsh Harrier, a male Stonechat, c.15 Pintail, a few squealing Water Rail, several hundred Wigeon and a paticularly showy Goldcrest that decided after feeding for a while, to sit in the bush next to me and fall asleep!

I then finished up at the reedbed by the first and second screens. The late afternoon light was fabulous and made for awesome photo opportunities, especially with good numbers of ducks at close quarters. Birds here included a large flock of Shoveler, 3 Pintail, as well as plenty of Teal, Mallard and Gadwall and smaller numbers of Tufted Duck and Pochard. The Marsh Harrier was constantly quartering the reeds and a Cetti's Warbler sang several times.

The Starlings gradually came in and while there was not much in the way of murmirating, the sight and sound of them all coming in was pretty bloody awesome. The noise was deafening! It was though frustrating to see some people climbing up the bank and peering into the reeds, risking interupting the show. There really are some flipping morons about!
Was difficult to say how many birds there were but subsequently I've seen online there was probably an estimated 50,000...nice!

I was insanely cold...like, f**kin freezing! So cue the long walk back to the car. I assumed that was the end of my day, however during the walk back, within the space of 5 seconds a Woodcock careered past and a Barn Owl then floated from over the hedge across the path and into the abyss! Great finish to a really enjoyable day's winter birding.