Long Day Count & Sanderling

Sunday 14/05/17 was BOS Long Day Count time. I teamed up with Gareth & Dan, together with local birder Clive, to find as many bird species as we could, in our 10km x 10km square in 12 hours. Our square of choice was SP44, taking in most of Banbury and quite a substantial area N of the town, taking in parts of Oxfordshire, Warwickshire & Northants too!

We began at Grimsbury Reservoir, Banbury from about 06:10am. Covering the reservoir and a sizable chunk of the Upper Cherwell Valley, we got off to a steady start with best birds including Ringed Plover, Dunlin, Willow & Marsh Tits and a couple of Common Terns.

A drive around villages and farmland further W & NW of Banbury produced a surprise Painted Lady around a quarry near Wroxton, a couple of Yellow Wagtail near Mollington & a Spotted Flycatcher by the church in Hanwell.

A stroll further into another section of the Upper Cherwell produced a few Curlew, good views of a fly through Hobby and the now rare sight of several Tree Sparrows.

As the day went on it became unsurprisingly difficult to find new additions to the list, despite our best efforts. Just when we thought they wouldn't join the list, both Jay and Willow Warbler were added at the eleventh hour. It was quite remarkable and slightly worrying how difficult Willow Warbler was to find, in particular.

The best thing late in the day, were another two Painted Lady around farmland near Wardington, before we returned to Grimsbury with a very respectable count of 75 species in the bag.

The next day (Monday 15/05) I carried out my usual lunchtime visit to Grimsbury Res. With heavy cloud and rain during the morning, I was hopeful that something may have dropped in. For once, my expectations were fulfilled with an obliging Sanderling along the W shore, coming nicely into summer plumage. This is the third for the site in as many years...pretty impressive for Grimbo!

Turtles & Hobbys

Having spent a lot of time out and about the previous day, I intended for Sunday 07/05 to be a little more relaxed. That said, the weather was set fair and so I was still keen to get outside as much as possible.

I took a nice chilled walk around Bucknell Wood during the morning. 2 Common Terns flying over calling was rather out of the ordinary. Other things noted included 2 Cuckoo & 8 Willow Warbler territories.

Afterwards, I chilled at home for a little while, before my mate Dan Watson came over. We decided to have a leisurely stroll around Otmoor with a small diversion to nearby Bernwood Meadows for the Green-Winged Orchids. Before leaving, we sat out in the garden for a bit with some food and coffee. While chatting away, a relatively low flying Hobby slowly cruised over, only my second garden record!

Bernwood was impressive with 100s of Green-Winged Orchids in flower and in glorious sunshine too!

I was pleased too, after a bit of effort, to find a white variant, something I'd failed to find the previous year.

On then to Otmoor in continued T-shirt weather. Before even leaving the car park, we could hear the wonderful sound of a purring Turtle Dove! A walk around prodced an impressive number of Hobby, at least 18 largely over Greenaways, though probably more. Also 2 Turtle Doves, 2 Marsh Harrier, reeling Gropper, mega distant, heat hazy, wobbly Garganey, several Cuckoos, a 3rd-summer Yellow-Legged Gull & LRP. Such a lovely reserve to visit in spring, just alive with life and warblers singing everywhere.

One of the great days!

With my better half away for the weekend and with no concrete plans myself, I decided to have a real birding-filled weekend.

Having stayed at my parents near Northampton on the Friday night. I started my weekend's birding early on Saturday (06/05) at Summer Leys, a relatively short drive down the road. With heavy cloud and drizzle beginning to fall, the omens were looking promising! I started from the double-decker hide overlooking the scrape and was soon into some good birds, with a smashing drake Garganey picking it's way through the scrape vegetation. Soon after, a Wood Sandpiper also crept into view too, in the company of a Redshank. 

The rain increased a little more as I worked my way around to Mary's Lake, enjoying good views of a Cuckoo en route. Mary's was worth the effort too, holding a group of five Black Tern swooping around in the company of a few Commons. Having worked this side of the reserve pretty well, I hopped back in the car and drove round to the car park and the main Pioneer Hide.

From here, with the rain slightly relenting, more good birds appeared. Scanning the bund and Wader Bay area of the reserve revealed 2 Grey Plover and a Dunlin. Shortly after, a further 2 Grey Plover dropped in to join them, including an absolutely stunning, pristine adult male. A vocal Avocet then flew in from the W and landed briefly on the scrape. It didn't however hang around for long, being chased off by several aggressive Black Headed Gulls. It did though appear to drop down on the E side of the reserve, out of sight.

The 2 Med Gulls also showed within the gull colony before flying past calling loudly and heading E. The other main highlight was the all-too-brief views of an Otter & two kits in the corner, moving quickly through the undergrowth, closely tagged by a concerned group of Black Headed Gulls! Amazing!

Other notable birds included 2 Greenshank, 7 Ringed Plover (including 5 straight through E), a notable group of 15 Redshank through E, 2-3 Cuckoo, 2 LRP, 1 Snipe, 1 Common Sand and large numbers of Swift overhead. The Avocet also re-appeared and was sat on Round Island. With things seemingly slowing down, I left and drove north to look for Nightingale & Turtle Dove in the N of the county.

Arriving at around midday, in on-off drizzle, it wasn't exactly ideal conditions, however I persevered. Eventually I managed to track down and enjoy 1-2 Nightingale and sat and listened for a while with the background sounds of Cuckoo, Garden Warbler, Willow Warbler, & Blackcaps. Cracking! 

This area has a bit of a track record of producing migrant Dotterel and so I spent a good hour or so scouring the surrounding fields in the optimistic hope that I'd get lucky! Didn't really see a lot other than a nesting pair of Ravens (actually just into Cambridgeshire and possibly rather notable).

My last planned visit of the day, was a drive down the A14 to Stanford Reservoir, where it has all been happening this spring. Due to repair work on the dam, the reservoir has been drained, revealing some monstrous areas of mud and shallow water, pulling in a very good variety of waders.

Saturday was no exception and I was soon pointed in the direction of a smart Sanderling, not too far from the inflow end. Also in this area were a single Greenshank, 3 Ringed Plover and several LRP. After a bit of a walk, a good scan across the Blowers Lodge Bay produced an excellent array of birds, including 2 Grey Plover, 2 Bar Tailed Godwit, another 8 Greenshank, 1 Whooper Swan, 1 Dunlin, 2 Common Sand, a couple of Yellow Wagtail, 1-2 Cuckoo & quite literally hundreds of Hirundines.

After being here for some time, I decided to slowly walk back to the car, scanning along the way. This soon produced bird of the day for me (at the time), as my eye caught sight of a small, distant brown blob on the Leicestershire shoreline. Getting the scope on it, I was really surprised to find a cracking little Jack Snipe bobbing up and down on the muddy shoreline. Highly unexpected! By far my latest Jack Snipe and made all the more remarkable by the fact it was nowhere near any cover at all and was bold as brass, just sitting in the open feeding away in the company of a couple of Mallards. A very interesting record! Very poor iphone-scoped photo below

Two Hobby appeared overhead, hunting the swarms of Hirundines for a short while before moving off along the reservoir and out of sight. The Sanderling had appeared to have moved on as I returned to the car.

I had set myself a target of 100 species for the day, to make it all a little bit more interesting. Having totted up, I was still a few species short so I decided I would drop into Pitsford for a look on the way back. Despite it only being about 18:15pm, it was decidedly gloomy.

I made my way down to the feeding station area for a scan of the Scaldwell, Walgrave & Holcot Bays, hoping I may find some waders. Initially, there didn't appear to be much about other than the usual Tree Sparrows, as well as a Greenshank, 2 Redshank & a female Yellow Wagtail. Some of the shoreline was obscured and so I made my way down to the Maytrees Hide to get a better look. I began another scan and immediately latched onto a bird looking directly away from me in the mouth of the Scaldwell Bay. With it's pale flanks my mind briefly wandered to think Red Crested Pochard, but no, it had a pale grey head. It then turned towards side on...holy s**t, summer plumaged Black Throated Diver!!!!!

I couldn't believe it! I immediately put the news out to one and all and thought I'd better wait until the first people arrived, which they duly did some 25 minutes later. What an insanely exciting bird to find and what a brilliant day I had, had, from start to finish. This was the 20th county record and a treasured county tick for me, my second self-found county tick in a row, following on from the Borough Hill Woodlark back in the autumn.

The day's grand total ended on a pretty impressive 103 species and that was without a few relatively straightforward species such as Mistle Thrush, Grey Wagtail & Nuthatch!

Terns, Terns & more Terns

This weekend has been a fantastic weekend to be out birding, with the weather finally providing some ideal E / SE winds and cloud, in turn producing a flood of birds into the country.

My Bank Holiday weekend began with a short morning walk in my favourite of the local Woods, Bucknell on Saturday 29/04. I was chuffed to encounter my first ever Grasshopper Warbler here, singing along the edge of one of the rides. After providing a few short bursts of song, it eventually really got going as I stood closeby. Very nice indeed! A short way further along the track, a singing Cuckoo appeared too. Good to see at least one has returned here to another year at least! Late-ish singles of Siskin & Redpoll flying about, completed my walk.

Sunday (30/04) promised plenty, as the wind switched to an SE direction. I had the full day for birding and so started at the Grimsbury patch, Banbury for a good session.

Things began promisingly with a single tern sp. bypassing the res distantly E. A few moments later the first good bird(s) of the day appeared, with a group of 5 Arctic Tern heading low and strongly S along the adjacent river. Best of the rest early on included 2 Little Egrets flew high SE, followed by a single Swift N and a Yellow Wagtail through too. Singles of Common Sandpiper & LRP were also seen early on.

Gareth then joined me. With just the odd ones & twos of Hirundines through, we decided to walk up the Cherwell valley to the Borrow Pit on the other side of the M40. This was very worthwhile, picking up a smart male Wheatear and, even better, a cracking male Whinchat too! We sat and enjoyed these for a while, also notching flyovers of Peregrine and another Little Egret S, as well as presumably the same Commons Sandpiper from earlier.

Walking through further habitat along the river produced our first patch Reed Warbler of the year, plus two flyover Common Tern too. Back at the res, we had another shortish watch which proved fruitful, with decent views of a Hobby that cruised through N.

With lots of Terns and Waders turning up throughout the country and our mate Dan Watson enjoying a great morning over at Draycote, Gareth and I decided to try both Daventry & Boddington Reservoirs. We had a good scan of Dav, sifting through approximately 30 Common Terns flying about, however we couldn't locate any scarcer Terns. The White Fronted Goose of potentially suspect origin was though still in situ.

On then to Bodd. On arrival, we were not surprised, but disappointed to find sailing in full swing and surely ruining our chances of anything good over the water. Just though when we were thinking of trying somewhere else, we simultaneously picked up two lovely adult Black Tern at the distant, dam end of the reservoir. Get in! We walked up to the far end and spent a while enjoying these beauties, a Boddington first for me.

During our walk about, we also encountered 2 Common Sandpiper, 2 Yellow Wagtail & 5 singing Reed Warbler. On return to the car, we decided to go and meet up with Dan at Draycote, with plenty of birds to enjoy there. One last scan of the reservoir delayed these plans slightly, as a big ball of terns could be seen coming down the reservoir towards us! They were Arctic Terns, totalling I think, 34 plus a single Common Tern too. Really exciting to see!! We enjoyed the birds for a while, flying around, joined also by the Black Terns too. It was then onto Draycote in good spirits!

Draycote produced further exciting birding with lots going on and birds dropping in regularly. Dan got us onto 5 Black Tern in the centre of the vast expanse, together with a couple of Arctic Tern viewed from just W of the sailing club. We walked E, the other side of the sailing club and cafe, more terns were visually dropping in with as many as 70-80 birds now flying around in a big group. The birds appeared to be a combination of both Commons and Arctics, though assessing numbers of each was difficult. The Black Terns too had increased in number with 19-20 birds in one tight group. Several Dunlin headed straight through totalling 14 birds, a Ringed Plover circled the reservoir, a Hobby flew SW and there were several Yellow Wagtail on the nearby grassy banks feeding away.

With plenty happening at Draycote, Gareth and I decided to have one last crack at Grimsbury, back in Banbury, before going home. Disappointingly, there was nothing of any note on arrival. We sat it out for a bit, but nothing was willing to drop in. Gareth decided to head home, while I decided to give it another 15 minutes or so. Unfortunately for him, a little while later, just when I was contemplating leaving, 5 stunning Black Tern dropped out of the gloomy sky and began actively feeding over the reservoir! I've seen Black Tern at Grimsbury on several occasions but these were my first spring birds there, so I was pretty chuffed! They continued to fly about for 10 minutes before they began calling to each other, gained height and off E. An exciting end to a great day's birding!

With weather conditions similar to Sunday's, Gareth and I had one more patch stint early on Bank Holiday Monday (01/05), hoping for more Terns and possibly a few more waders than we had, had so far. As it turned out, we saw a few nice bit and bobs but overall, it was pretty quiet. The highlight was a female Whinchat that appeared first thing, along the fence line on the W side of the reservoir. Other birds of note both here and in the Upper Cherwell included a female Wheatear, 3 Common Terns through, Peregrine and Red Kite over, Willow Tit, 2-3 Common Sandpiper & 2 LRP.