Braxwing

On Friday (28/03) I had the day off work, with me heading off to a friend's stag do later on in the day. For much of the morning and afternoon though, I had a bit of free time to myself. I used my time to do the rounds of some of my local sites to see what I could find.

I started early at Grimsbury Res, however despite a thorough walk round, it was a relatively fruitless visit with singles of LRP & Willow Tit, as well as a Snipe in the Upper Cherwell Valley.

After nipping home I popped out to Bucknell Wood for a walk. There were decent numbers of Lesser Redpoll & Siskin still about and I was pleased to see my first couple of Comma of 2017 too.

I arrived home to get my stuff together for the weekend, however I was quickly out the door again, seeing a report of a Waxwing a couple of minutes drive down the road! I'd tried hard this winter to find Waxwings in Brackley, but to no avail. So to have the chance to see one after all, was a nice surprise!

The bird showed well, either sat up resting in a tree, occasionally fly-catching, or feeding on a surprisingly laden berry tree close by on Falcon Way. I sat and watched it for quite a while, before having to head off. Lovely stuff!

Early on Sunday (26/03) evening, I returned home from a great weekend away and seeing that the Waxwing was still about, I headed round the corner for another look. Again she showed really nicely, spending pretty much the whole time sat in the berry bush, sporadically having a feed. After a while, it flew to the back of the bush, so I headed home.

It's springtime!

So, it's now well into March and the local wildlife has a very much springlike vibe to it, with the first of our migrants beginning to trickle in. Exciting times!

It all started with a good, healthy dusting of Chiffchaff during the first week of the month, a touch earlier than last year. 

The first 'proper' migrants arrived for me all at once on Thursday 16/03 with a lovely male Little Ringed Plover & 5 Sand Martins, both at Grimsbury Reservoir. The LRP was I think, my earliest yet & was the first in Oxfordshire for 2017 too!

As of today (22/03/17), the LRP numbers at Grimsbury have now swelled to three with some entertaining displaying going on pretty regularly. Your classic Grimsbury 'chain-link fence view' of the female bird below!

Other notable Grimsbury records from recent weeks, have included my first Redshank for the site, a singing Blackcap (presumably a wintering bird, as apposed to a migrant), a female Stonechat, (a pretty scarce bird for the res) and best of all, today's winter-plumaged Knot. The Knot is a fantastic record for Grimsbury and is a patch tick for most. To Gareth's knowledge, it's also only the third known record for the site. Hopefully it is a sign of things to come this spring!

Away from the birds, the more milder, sunnier days have brought out my first butterflies of the year, with Brimstone on 09/03 and Small Tortoiseshell on 15/03, both in Banbury.

My garden pond has also been fascinating to watch with well in excess of 20 Common Frogs gathering for a bit of 'hows your father'!. The amount of spawn this year is certainly by far the most we've ever had, which is excellent. It won't be long before the pond is a writhing mass of tadpoles!

The Bluethroat vigil

I'm not going to lie, I am a big fan of the chat family and I guess Bluethroats are just the epitomy of everything that is great about them...full a character, possessing an almost eccentricity, not to mention their breathtaking colours. As chats go, they are top notch! 

I had only seen my first ever Bluethroats last year in eastern Poland, however I was yet to see one in the UK and so I had promised myself I would make the effort to seeing the next twitchable one.

At this time of year, Bluethroat isn't really on the radar, however news emerged of an obliging, 1st-winter male at Willow Tree Fen, south Lincolnshire, not too far from Peterborough. It proved to be a very popular bird and as such I wasn't initially keen to head over as it sounded like a bit of a melee.

Around 3 weeks on from the first reports of the bird, I still hadn't got over there. So I finally earmarked Sunday 05/03 as the day to go. A check of the weather on Friday night and it was all change! Saturday 04/03 was by far the better day for weather, with persistent rain forecast for much of Sunday. Clearing out the garage would have to wait for a day!

I set off silly early, with visions of getting there before anyone else and having the bird all to myself (yeah right!). Before arriving at the site I had a brief stop and the nearby Baston Fen / pits which I have to say looked awesome and nice and easy to bird from the side of the road. A couple of Barn Owls were hunting the verges in the early morning light, while there were a nice selection of birds on the pits including 5 Red Crested Pochard, a few Oystercatchers, Shelduck, Goldeneye and plenty of Wigeon.

On then to Willow Tree Fen, some 15 minutes down the road. So far, everything was going to plan and I was indeed the first one there! I set off down the track, eagerly looking out for anything vaguely chat-like flicking out of the strip of reeds to the right of the path. I reached the correct area, easily recognised by the large patch of well-trodden grass.  

A birder with some very fancy recording equipment turned up in the hope of capturing some Bluethroat song and low and behold we had our first signs of it's presence with a few short bursts of half-hearted sub-song. Awesome!

A few others showed up. After a bit of a wait the bird finally appeared, flicking out of the reeds, onto the path nearby...only for one particular guy to shout out "there it it is, there it is!" End result, it shot straight back into the reeds. First class fieldcraft there chap, cheers!

A slightly bigger crowd gathered, however there was zero sign of the bird for what seemed like ages. I popped back to the car to put another layer on and to have a slurp of coffee from my thermos flask. Walking back to join the small crowd, the welcome sight of the sun appeared which in turn coincided with some lovely views of a very vocal Bearded Tit in reeds by the path.

Finally, with the sun beaming down, I managed to pick out the Bluethroat singing again and got onto it sat on one of the fence posts directly behind the bird's favoured strip of reeds. I was super chuffed to gain my first prolonged views of it, despite it being quite obscured by reeds. 

From there on in, sightings became far more frequent, albeit quite brief. However, following a little scuffle with a male Stonechat, it then appeared in a large, bare patch of ground filling a gap in between the strip of reeds. The views were insane to say the least, with the bird scuttling to within 5 feet of me as I stood stock still. Unforgettable!

He then began singing a lot more, mostly subsong, however would occasionally give it a bit more gusto. Again he appeared and sat in the reeds for quite sometime watching the world go by, before having another feed right out in front of us.

At this point quite a few people departed, however I couldn't resist hanging around for one more showing. Some 20 minutes later, he duly obliged providing further magic views at point blank range.

I then slowly headed for home, popping into Summer Leys on the way, having not visited there for quite some time. There wasn't really much of note other than a couple of smart drake Red Crested Pochard on one of the adjacent lakes, as well as all the usual wildfowl.

What a fabulous day! It's not often I'll travel some distance to see just one bird but today, I made a real exception and I have to say it was 100% worth it!