21-22 January 2022; More Top Birding!

Friday21st January; Celebrity Snub

On the River Thames in Oxford where the main channel has been split into several parts so that folk with boats can navigate shallows and fast moving stretches of water, is a bridge that crosses one of the shallow sections. This is "Morse" country, until recently plagued by zillions of eager tourists who have read the books or watched the TV show, but now thankfully only blighted by thousands since international tourism isn't really a thing any more. The short stretch of river between the bridge and a weir downstream has become the well known spot, amongst local birders and photographers, for seeing a pair of Kingfishers.

I have seen lots of really excellent photos of the Kingfishers taken on the river as it winds its way through Port Meadow, the open flat grassy floodplain that provides the citizens of Oxford with a calm and tranquil space in which to jog, walk their dogs and generally enjoy whatever noisy pastime they get their pleasure from. Even birders grab some fun out there and the Meadow is a well known hotspot for scarce county bird records, most recently a wintering Dotterel was found there and before that a Pectoral Sandpiper, which incidentally was my first county record of the species. Despite the ease of access and that it's only a dozen miles from home I have hardly ever visited Port Meadow for birding although my apparent disregard for the place may need some rethinking in future. Most studies of Kingfishers are of a stationary bird perched motionless on a branch, while it waits for a fish to swim close by that it can catch. However, there is always the opportunity to capture the Kingfisher in mid-dive as it plummets towards the water, or even the moment when the bill spears the waters surface. And of course you can photograph the bird when it has a captured fish in its bill ready for consumption. Images of a diving Kingfisher are difficult to capture though, the bird doesn't dive from a great height like an Osprey would, so it is quick to hit the water once leaving its perch. It also gives no warning as to when it will dive and most fingers on camera buttons are not fast enough to react once the bird has left its perch. Hence the well known and very dubious method that some professional photographers have engineered of placing captive fish in a tank and putting that in the water, a practice that I entirely and wholeheartedly abhor, and using motion sensitive camera shutters to capture the moment. In my opinion if photography of birds can't be one hundred percent natural then what's the point? None at all to my mind.

Anyway on the Friday morning after the toils of a supermarket sweep, I made my way to the designated carpark to try my arm at gaining a good view and maybe some nice photos of my own of the celebrity Kingfisher. We parked right at the river end of the carpark, jumped out of the car and booted up, excited and hopeful of seeing the Kingfisher. Then the plans unravelled right before my eyes. As I lifted the camera strap over my head, I noticed the Kingfisher on a branch over the river no more than twenty feet away. I was not expecting that at all and maybe related the fact a bit too loudly and excitedly to Mrs Caley. As I raised the camera to take a shot, the Kingfisher turned tail and fled tootling away down river. It wouldn't have mattered anyway since I hadn't even switched the camera on! We never saw the supposedly showy female Kingfisher again that morning!

It wasn't for the lack of trying though. We walked downriver and back for a mile or so (twice) checking all the spots and perches that the Kingfisher favours (Port Meadow regular and ace photographer, Jessica had kindly supplied me with detailed info) but we never pinned her down. We did however, see a male Kingfisher but he was fishing off a mooring pontoon right over the side of the river and at one of the widest points too so there were no close frame filling views of him.

male Kingfisher

We watched from the bridge for a while, another good spot to watch from, but had to make do with an unusual view from directly above of a Grey Wagtail that was carefully doing its own fishing of a sort on a shallow ledge of the bridge supports and a plethora of Goldfinches feeding in the tops of tall trees (alders I think).

Great Wagtail

With no more luck with either Kingfisher we gave up but we'd had a nice walk on a chilly morning and I had learned a bit more about the meadow. I had also done an important recce for further visits.

Cormorant

Year List addition;

114) Kingfisher

Saturday22nd January; Red-necked Willow Tree!

We didn't make it Carsington Water the week before having been put off by the foggy weather so decided to go for it this time. At just under two hours drive away, the huge reservoir shouldn't really be on the agenda unless travelling to or back from a twitch further up north but there are special birds there that are hard to see locally. There was also the added attraction of not one but two Red-necked Grebes present, a species that I didn't see at all last year.

It was still a bit gloomy, and very cold, at eight o'clock when we parked up in the Millfields carpark. One of the Red-necked Grebes was supposed to hang out by the inlet tower close to the carpark so it should be a snip to see it. The carpark also has bird feeders where a couple of the other target birds of the day come to feed on seed. I drove around the carpark looking for the said feeders but couldn't find them at first but on my second sweep noticed them by the first parking bay that you come to! I parked up right next to them and immediately saw a couple of Tree Sparrows on one of the hanging seed feeders. Tree Sparrows have become increasingly tough to see in Oxfordshire and are thinning out in neighbouring counties too. Seeing them here will save spending time looking for them back at home although it would be far more exciting to find some there.

Tree Sparrow

We walked along the path to the reservoir, bracing the very chilly wind that whistled across the water. It's a very exposed site and always feels cold, we've only just warmed up after a visit last November to see a Snow Bunting, so we had made sure that we were well togged up. I checked the immediate part of the reservoir but only found common waterbirds plus a nice "herd" of eighteen Whooper Swans that were noisily "whooping" away to each other.

Whooper Swans

I cast the net further, and further out from the bank but still no joy. Another birder came towards us walking from the other end of the dam. He told us that both Red-necked Grebes were at the other of the reservoir and could be seen from the Lane End hide but should just about be viewable with a scope from the slight kink in the dam wall which was about half a mile from where we stood. Rather than return to the car and drive to the Sheepwash carpark and walk for half a mile to the hide we (foolishly) decided to take our chances from the dam, after all one or both of the Grebes could choose to return to the Millfields end of the reservoir. I made frequent stops as we walked along the dam and made scans of the water for the Red-necked Grebes. On one scan I found a Great Northern Diver almost out in the middle of the reservoir. After the very close views we've had recently of a juvenile GND at Farmoor, I didn't waste any time trying to gain useless images of this one. As we reached the slight bend in the dam wall, I scanned one last time and immediately set eyes on one of the Red-necked Grebes. Half a mile out but a year tick and comparable to the last one we saw at Rutland Water in 2020. I was happy to see it though, safe in the knowledge that I have some satisfactory images of the bird that spent two spells of a few weeks duration at Farmoor in 2016, once in full breeding plumage and then later in the year in winter garb as per the bird seen here.

Red-necked Grebe, Rutland 02/11/2019

Happy that we'd at least seen a Red-necked Grebe we returned to the carpark and studied the bird feeders and the trees in which they hang. The trees and feeders were now illuminated by the low winter sun so any photos that I'd take would be much better than when we first arrived. To begin with I just watched the comings and goings of the various bird species that visited the feeders. Both of the special  birds that we had hoped for were seen. Willow Tits frequently flew in to grab a seed before either flying off to the wooded areas to eat it (or cache it for later) or occasionally they ate it while still in the feeder tree. Pinning one down for photographs took a while but I succeeded in the end.

Willow Tit

Tree Sparrows were less frequent at the dining table but once there they tended to sit on the feeders for a prolonged period. By exhibiting time honoured photography snobbery, I refused to take photos of the birds eating at the feeders since I wanted shots of birds in a more natural setting, that is in the tree itself. Eventually, well after waiting for around fifteen minutes anyway, a Tree Sparrow indulged me by doing just that by perching beautifully above the feeders and I had my authentic images to take home.

While waiting for the Willow Tits and Tree Sparrows to feed there were plenty of other birds around to keep me occupied. Great, Blue, Coal and Long-tailed Tits (as many as a dozen of the latter crammed onto one nut feeder), Chaffinches and Goldfinches, a Nuthatch that stole in and out as quick as quicksilver, Blackbirds and Pied Wagtails on the ground underneath the feeders, and even a small gaggle of Mallards all fed heartily at the offerings. A few afforded some really good photo opportunities.

Long-tailed Tit

Coal Tit

I finished by photographing a couple of Willow Tits that stayed longer than most in the tree to eat the seeds that they had gathered. Getting unobstructed views was the only difficulty in obtaining easily my best ever images of our rarest breeding Tit species, other than the highly localised Crested Tit in Scotland. My thanks go out to the couple who arrived bearing more seed and nut gifts for the birds. I don't know if they fill the feeders out of their own pockets or whether they do so on behalf of the local wildlife authority but I and every other birder who visits to see the Willow Tits, Tree Sparrows and other birds that feed on the handouts owe them a huge amount of gratitude. 

We had plans to drive across country to Eyebrook reservoir near Rutland to add another scarce bird to our year list so left so that we'd have time to get there and find the birds. We found a cafe halfway and pulled in for refreshments, almost left without having any such was the poor standard of service and the time we had to wait, but still made it Eyebrook by three o'clock. There have been up to eighteen Smew at the reservoir this winter so it was surprising that it took us nearly half an hour to find any of the smart winter visiting ducks! We had had a similar problem when trying to year tick Smew at the reservoir two years ago but on that occasion it had been almost dark, today we had bright sunshine to search in. The problem was that the sun was largely against us making identification of any birds at distance tricky. Add to that the fact that Smew dive a lot so are not always on view and you may realise why I was struggling. It was only when we moved around to the opposite bank and found a gap in the hedge to view from that we found some Smew above water. Once we'd found one, others quickly followed and we ended up seeing five males and three of the very different looking females.

male (above) & female (below) Smew

The range of wildfowl on offer was well represented with Goldeneye, Pintail, Wigeon, Teal and Tufted Ducks all present in varying numbers. There was even a couple of Avocets sifting through the shallows. We had set out with four target birds in our scope and had seen all four so it had been a successful sortie into the Midlands.

male Goldeneye

Avocet

Year List additions;

115) Tree Sparrow, 116) Red-necked Grebe, 117) Willow Tit, 118) Smew