Common Or Not, Otmoor, 18th July 2020

Our garden fence needed more work so it was to be another late start on Saturday for us. By my own standards, I had had a hard week at work as well so we decided that we'd stay local and make plans to go somewhere on the Sunday instead. We have two go to places locally, Farmoor and Otmoor. Usually I can never make my mind up which one to go to until I'm heading southwards on the A34 but today I actually knew that it was Otmoor that called because the weekend before, Mr Otmoor (read Peters Otmoor Birding blog) had found some Common Redstarts in a less frequently visited part of the Moor, and considering that I had only a fleeting view of one while working in Gloucestershire back in April and Mrs Caley had yet to see any this year, it made sense to try to get them well and truly on to the year list.

At half past seven my fencing chap called to say that he couldn't make it, one of those things, so in the event we were parked up at Otmoor by eight o'clock. Instead of heading out along the bridleway as we had many times during the last few months of restrictive access, we walked up through the avenue of trees that line the footpath known as Roman Road. In a few weeks time enthusiasts will be searching among the Oaks and Nettles for the scarce Brown Hairstreak Butterfly but we saw nobody as we strolled along. We didn't see many birds either, only taking a scolding from a Wren as meagre reward for our efforts. At the northern end of the track the Roman Road meets the eastern end of the bridleway and then leads out, after passing through a gate, onto a wide open field known as Saunders Field. Beyond that field is the area known as The Pill, a small wet marshy patch that attracts Whinchats in the autumn and Jack Snipe in the winter. To the right is the high wall of the MOD firing range and the flagpole here warns people that when the red flag is raised, shooting practice is taking place and it is unsafe to be in the field or in the Pill field further on, mind you I think that if you're in danger that far away from the firing range then the shooters certainly do need as much practice as they can get! We walked here on a Sunday morning last year, heading out early looking for Short-eared Owls, and hadn't realised that it was a shooting day. A chap on a Quad Bike came racing along the path and advised us that we had just half an hour to get out of the area otherwise they'd be a gang of angry and impatient soldiers waiting by their guns! What he didn't tell us was that he'd also be chaining and padlocking all of the gates up, to prevent further access, so we had to climb them all to escape. We were safe today though since shooting ranges have been closed along with just about everything else this year.

Mr Otmoor, had found the Common Redstarts in the hedge that creates the boundary with Greenaways which lay to our left as we walked through the field. There are two paths, one runs right past the hedge while the other leads through the high grasses about fifty metres away from the boundary line. We chose the latter path so that we could see the hedge from a distance and also so that we wouldn't disturb any birds within it. For the first fifteen minutes we needn't have bothered with any stealth since first a jogger, then a dog walker and then two cyclists trundled along the closest path to the hedge! Another example of how other folks recreation choices impact on our own but it is a free country apparently. Once the local rush hour had passed we were alone together (hah, oxymoron) in the field. I scanned along the unkempt hedge all the way along to the small bridge that links Saunders Field to The Pill Field but saw nothing. Birds were calling though both within the hedge and further afield on the reserve. I could hear Curlews bubbling away and Red Kites whistling but for now it was the hedge that had my attention. The soft and up-slurred "hu-weet" call of a Willow Warbler emanated from the closest part of the hedge and was followed by the similar but subtly different "hu-it" contact call of a Common Redstart so at least we knew there was still at least one present, and  that now we just had to wait for it to show itself which in true Redstart form it did shortly afterwards. Another scan of the face of the hedge revealed a small speck of bright red about a hundred metres away. The Redstart then dropped to the ground to snare an insect and returned to its perch. We walked carefully towards it to get into range for a record shot before it disappeared into the trees again.

male Common Redstart

I often think it's a shame that so many of our regular species were given the prefix "Common" and not just because a lot of them are not so common anymore. In fact some of our commonly named birds are actually a bit thin on the ground these days, especially so in Oxfordshire. Obviously a lot of the pioneering ornithologists were British and I guess that to differentiate between the frequently occurring species with scarcer ones then Common was a useful divider but it's still a pity that more imagination wasn't used when naming those birds at the outset. There are many species familiar in the UK that have managed to lose the Common denominator, as it were, and get by with being called by their main name, such as the Starling and the Kestrel, and the Redstart can fall into that category unless a distinction between a Common Redstart and a Black Redstart is being made. But there are others that are saddled with being called Common and will always be so, for instance the Common Sandpiper which will never be known merely as the Sandpiper, or the Common Tern, which nobody is ever going to call the Tern. Then there are others, Common Rosefinch for example, so common that I've only ever seen one! Or Common Redpoll, a species which only a few learned people know what type of Redpoll that actually is, Lesser or Mealy or something else! We also have a Common Gull, well not in Oxfordshire they're not! So I think a campaign should be started to change the names of these "Common" birds to something more descriptive and befitting of them. For example the Common Sandpiper could be renamed the Bouncy Sandpiper owing to its habit of bouncing up and down or maybe, more accurately, The See You Later I'm Off Sandpiper since invariably that's what they do as soon as they spot you and before you can get close enough for a decent photo opportunity.

Common Redstart could be christened the Difficult Redstart because trying to get close to them is not usually an easy task either since they are very wary. No sooner than we got anywhere near this particular bird then it fled into the hedge. I'd need to adopt some proper fieldcraft if I was going to get a half decent image. We walked along the track to a spot roughly opposite the point where the Redstart had perched on the hedge moments before. Mrs Caley made up her Walk-stool and sat while I waded into the long grass, disturbing thousands of grasshoppers at every step, and then knelt down so that I was mostly secreted from view. Now I just had to wait for the Difficult Redstart to reappear. The ploy worked because a few minutes later the Common Redstart, a fine male of course, proved to be less difficult and popped out onto the front of the hedge again, in a slightly different position but well within reach of my lens.

Another Redstart, sorry another Common Redstart, called from along the hedge back towards the gate by which we entered the field. Now we knew there were at least two present since I could still the other flitting through the hedge in front of me. When the first bird didn't reappear I moved back towards the other bird and this time as well as secreting myself in the long grass, I also found a place closer to the hedge. I had the plethora of Grasshoppers for company and I now understood why the Redstarts were staying loyal to this hedgerow, since it was easy for them just to drop onto the ground and secure a snack. The multitudes of Grasshoppers reminded me of a trip to see a Squacco Heron near Pagham Harbour in Sussex that we made last year, the Squacco was gorging itself on the insects. The second Redstart appeared, I had heard it calling so knew it was close, just ten metres or so away. I realised that this was very close for a Redstart, it would be nervous, and it obviously knew I was there since it looked quizzically in my direction. The Redstart remained though and actually began to preen although it didn't appear interested in feeding, presumably because of my presence, so I only dared to move my arm very slowly to take a few photos.

The Redstart retreated back into the hedge and I at last could glance behind me to see that Mrs Caley had moved with me and was sat on her stool. A thumbs-up indicated that she had seen the Redstart as well, albeit from a bit further away. We both turned to watch first a Curlew noisily trying to escort a Red Kite out of its territory, a sure sign that it would have young in the field somewhere, and then a Little Egret that came flying across the field towards Greenaways. I looked back at the hedge and noticed a bird perched right at the top of a slender twig that thrust skywards. Initially I thought it was a female Reed Bunting but quickly realised that the shape didn't quite fit. Rather than reach for my binoculars, I fired off a few frames before turning around to indicate to my wife to look at the bird at the top of the hedge, frustratingly though she was still looking the other way and I couldn't call out since it would have scared the bird off. I had now done the right thing and was looking at the bird through my optics and it transpired to be a Whinchat, and a juvenile at that, something I didn't expect to see on Otmoor in the middle of July.

juvenile Whinchat

Another bird was calling and moving through the hedge, sounding superficially like another Redstart but slightly different somehow. I waited until the bird broke cover, although it refused to fully show itself, and it was clear that it wasn't a Redstart. After a while the bird showed in a gap between the branches, it was a Willow Warbler, which of course I already knew because I had recognised the call. Yeah, right!

Willow Warbler

I had called Peter earlier, telling him about the Whinchat and Redstarts, and he had confirmed my suspicions that they may be breeding around the Moor. He said he would join us. My phone rang, it was Peter asking, "Where are you?", "In the long grass by the hedge", I replied. "No you're not", came the answer. Cue pantomime, "Oh yes I am!". A few seconds later we realised that Peter was barking up the wrong field (some folk will get that one) and was looking for me in Long Meadow, the traditional holding spot for Redstarts on Otmoor, about half a mile away from where I was actually was. Fifteen minutes he did join us but none of the birds were now willing to show themselves but at least I had the photos to share. The Curlew family were still around though and were periodically chasing of Red Kites and a fine Marsh harrier which never came close enough, as they never seem to do here, for a decent photo. A Hobby flashed through, the other side of the hedge is a good spot for them, and a Kestrel hunted over the field. The Curlews themselves did approach more closely and as well as flying overhead a few times, one of them flew directly towards us and landed in the grass just fifty metres or so away, presumably to shepherd one of its youngsters and to keep a check on us.

male Curlew

We'd enjoyed the couple of hours that we'd spent in Saunders Field, Common Redstarts are a rare treat (hah!) in our area and seeing the Whinchat was a nice surprise. For a lot of the time though, as I had been doing all week, I had been checking the status of the big bird that was gracing the uplands of the Peak District. The Lammergeier had been showing pretty well all week at or near its roosting spot and I felt it was time to make the effort to go and see it. It was just too amazing a bird not to go and see and I wasn't bothered whether or not the purists would ever accept it as a truly wild bird. I spent the afternoon planning that trip, which we had decided to make the following day.