Lockdown Birding and Local Exploration, 27-29th March

The expected Lockdown was enforced by the Government on the evening of Wednesday the 25th of March. Coincidently the Builder that I do a lot of my work for was also forced to close all of his sites because a Plumber (and friend, thankfully he has fully recovered now) was taken ill and was showing all the signs of Coronavirus. Normally the prospect of a week or more's holiday would have me feeling very excited and I'd be planning days out just about everywhere in order to see many of our returning summer birds as well as some spring passage migrants. But, of course, in addition to the uncertainty and anxiety that many of us would be experiencing, Lockdown meant that we were being told to stay at home, avoid social contact and not to travel unless absolutely necessary. The self-isolation part is easy for Mrs Caley and myself since we don't mix much anyway and hardly ever go out to pubs or restaurants unless we are out and about on a days birding somewhere. The staying in bit is definitely more difficult for us because we like the outdoors a lot. In fact I struggle to stay indoors and get bored very quickly if I'm confined to barracks. A bored Old Caley can rapidly become a very grumpy Old Git! All right, an even more grumpy Old Git!

I spent the first day of Lockdown (or should that be Locked Up, I do love an oxymoron), spending time in the garden, digging worms up for the Robins and Blackbirds and looking ever hopefully skywards for the expected constant passage of White-tailed Eagles and Ospreys but as per usual they chose to fly over a certain garden just south-west of Oxford and avoided my home town like the plague. Of course we still had the myriads of Red Kites displaying and bickering overhead but after years now of seeing these, admittedly fantastic, birds flying over my house, I've become extremely blasé to them. I've even tried to resist taking any more photos of them since I have so many and almost all are of birds flying overhead. Until another one decides to fly over my garden.....!

Red Kite

There were other critters to watch in the garden, a Sparrowhawk passed overhead a few times but resisted coming too close presumably because I was around. I halfheartedly took photos of Robins, Blue Tits, Dunnocks and House Sparrows, even a Chaffinch which are far from common visitors to my humble patch of England. A mouse scuttled around beneath the bird table and I watched it as it furtively picked up sunflower seeds that were spilt by the many Collared Doves and Wood Pigeons that empty the feeders almost daily. I contemplated the thought of spending the next year resigned to birding in the garden and decided that I would definitely go stir crazy pretty quickly! I would have to find somewhere to go that at least involved a walk and had some different and more interesting birds to find.

Sparrowhawk

Chaffinch

Mouse

We don't have a lot of choices for birding around Bicester, my home town, which is increasing in size every single minute of every day owing to the amount of new houses and industry being built. True, there is our local nature reserve, Bicester Wetlands, run by the brilliant Banbury Ornithological Society and wardened by my good friend Alan, but that is away on the other side of town and would be a two mile walk through nothing but housing estates to get to, so, while the non-essential travel restrictions are in place, we wouldn't be going there unless combining it with a necessary trip to the supermarket close by. Bicester isn't a great place for wildlife watching, we have no major bodies of water, no rivers and no large areas of woodland. The town is surrounded largely by flat farmland (and busy roads) and the nearest hills are six miles away on the Oxfordshire/Buckinghamshire border.   Otmoor is around a ten mile drive and Farmoor just over fifteen miles away. Despite this dearth of nature rich habitat, thousands of people are still choosing to come and live here, more turned on by two train stations, barbers and coffee shops, and a bloody retail shopping outlet that I absolutely despise!

On Thursday evening, already bored with being stuck in at home, I pored over an Ordnance Survey of my local area looking for possible routes that we could walk directly from the house that might take us somewhere good for birds. Really I was studying the map to merely underline my knowledge of the area since I have lived here for virtually all of my life so know the place inside out, well except for the seventy percent that has been built over in the last twenty years that is, and my map was probably twenty years out of date! One of the railway lines runs past about a half mile away from our house and railway embankments are always good places for wildlife, but unfortunately footpaths in such secluded places, especially in busy towns, can also attract the shadier side of life and therefore are best avoided. I did some work once at a farm close to the railway a few years ago and I knew a footpath went past there and beyond towards Bucknell and then even further away onto Ardley. This was the route I chose for a regular walk to get some bird therapy, and exercise per the government guidelines of course, considering the start of the farm track was only ten minutes walk away from our front door.

Early on Friday morning we ventured out along the deserted roads, past the local shop which would become a frequent port of call for basic foods over the next few weeks and reached the railway bridge, known as Ten Ten (or Ten Ton) bridge and the start of the track towards the farm. A sign points the way to Trow Pool, a mile and three-quarters away and a place that I knew very well from my teenage years although greatly changed these days owing to the M40 running right past it. For now though we merely intended to walk to the farm and back. We sauntered slowly along the track, not most peoples idea of exercising but we always walk slowly, that way we don't miss so much. The hedgerows bordering the path were lively with Blue and Great Tits busy along with Robins, Dunnocks and Wrens. There is a large horse paddock that borders the railway and the short grass was favoured by Crows, Rooks, Jackdaws and Magpies, a few Wood Pigeons and several well fed Rabbits. The habitat would be favourable to many spring migrants through the next month and I had a quick hazy moment where I imagined a Hoopoe feeding happily away next to the horses! For now though the only sign of spring was a single Chiffchaff singing repetitively from a tall tree by the railway. Beyond the farm is another large pasture field, empty of horses, but holding a couple of Skylarks and on this morning, a late and lonely Fieldfare. Chaffinches sang heartily from evenly spaced perches all along the path and some posed perfectly.

Fieldfare

Chaffinch

I have a rebellious streak in me, always have had, and now I had found a place to explore I wasn't about to simply turn around and go home because my hour was up but instead kept going toward Trow Pool. It would be good to revisit old stomping grounds anyway. After the pasture fields are a couple of open stony ploughed fields and the footpath traverses over these. The hedgerows along these fields were alive with Yellowhammers and the skies above resounded to the songs of Skylarks. We were feeling much better already just by being out in the countryside again and so far had seen absolutely nobody else apart from a horsewoman and her horse. In the warming sunny air, the ubiquitous Red Kites were, obviously, everywhere and I just couldn't resist taking some photos of one that passed close by.

Red Kite

We reached the motorway and crossed it by a bridge close to the Trow Pool Water Tower. Normally the noise of traffic would be deafening here but today with so few vehicles it was almost tranquil. The Water Tower was a playground for me back in the 1970's and my  mates and I at the time spent countless hours there. In those days the Tower was a ramshackle affair and pretty dangerous, and therefore more inviting, to mess about in. Now the structure has been renovated and renewed but also rendered inaccessible to the children of today, even big kids like me couldn't climb it even I was physically able to, which I am definitely not. I remember Barn Owls using the Tower as a nesting site. Cherwell District Council have turned the whole Trow Pool site into a recreation area, not specifically a nature reserve although it was certainly worth a look further. We wandered down the track between two healthy hedgerows which also held lots of the common bird species and reached the pool. I used to fish in the pool years ago. The council cleared the pool out and enlarged it but it is still very shallow and weed infested. Surrounded by trees and hedges the small pool is unlikely to attract much in the way of aquatic bird life but there were Moorhens, a pair of Mute Swans and a pair of Little Grebes on it.

Little Grebe

Mute Swan

We didn't tarry, we were now a fair way from home, so retraced our steps back towards the motorway after a quick circuit of the pond. We were very encouraged by the habitat at the Pool and would be keen to return again soon. A Chiffchaff sang from a tree and we could hear a Song Thrush but couldn't find it, neither did we see the Green Woodpecker that baffled away in the distance.

Chiffchaff

On our return journey a few other people had ventured out for their own constitutionals and we all reverently gave up space so that we could pass safely according to the social distancing measures. It was a warm day by mid-morning and there were even more Red Kites in the air and I added even more Red Kite photo to my already overloaded Red Kite portfolio. Same old, same old.

Red Kite

By the time we reached our house we were both pretty knackered! I felt like I'd walked up a Scottish Mountain and back, I wish, instead of flat tracking in North Oxfordshire. The biggest surprise of the walk came almost at our door when I noticed a couple of male Greenfinches in one of our trees. Greenfinch are garden gold dust!

Greenfinch

We had found somewhere good to go with plenty of potential and felt so much better for going there. A repeat excursion would be on the cards very soon.