Green Sandpiper and reflections

Green Sandpiper - a relatively uncommon migrant wader on Port Meadow

After my last blog post I've been reflecting a bit on my current attitude towards the patch. After a good autumn and some rather optimistic new year plans, it it's become clear that I've lost quite a bit of motivation and my visits are often ending with negative feelings towards birding. I do think there has been an unusually long time without finding anything that I deem interesting, but I was wondering why I was feeling that way when there have been some objectively good records - e.g. the Siberian Chiffchaff. Some of the feedback I've received both online and in person has prompted me to think a bit more deeply about the philosophy of patch birding and after writing down my thoughts this blog post is the result.

Out on the patch this morning it was almost breezeless and the water was very still, so there were some fantastic reflections. I spent a while photographing a Great White Egret and a Grey Heron at close range and I've used the photos to illustrate this post, which seems fitting. The highlight of the morning was a Green Sandpiper that dropped in briefly before melting away along the ditch. Not a common bird here - in fact, we failed to record any last year, so it was pleasing to find and even better decided to pose up nicely for photos.

Port Meadow is a strange "in-betweener" as far as inland patches go - not quite at the level of some of the big Midlands reservoirs, where you can almost expect to jam in on overland movements when they're happening, but it's definitely one of the best sites in the county and has a bit of a pedigree in terms of rare bird records over the years. I've yet to compile a full patch list, including historic records, but I reckon it's somewhere around the 200 mark. It's therefore difficult to treat it just like a walk around a local park (or watching the back garden), where even new records of common birds, or a bit of interesting behaviour, are often enough to generate some excitement. There is a level of expectation involved with it which is much higher than most other inland patches, and it has been watched intensively for many years.

The truth, though, is that Port Meadow is still just a muddy puddle within the Oxford ring road - it isn't a nature reserve, isn't managed specifically for birds, doesn't have hides or contain many different habitat types and, crucially, is subject to a lot of disturbance from the public. I also suspect that the presence of Farmoor just a few miles away has a negative effect - the reservoir presumably acts as a massive beacon for any flyover migrants looking for water to rest on, sucking them down and causing most of the Little Gulls, Kittiwakes, Arctic and Black Terns to miss Port Meadow entirely. It's a good patch, but I've definitely been fooled into thinking that its potential is far higher than it really is. With this mindset comes the unhealthy feeling that spending more time out birding will inevitably result in more birds being found, and that the reason why I didn't see any Little Gulls during the recent influx was simply due to not being there all the time - they MUST have occurred, right?! In reality, with a patch like this it's mostly about luck. I don't think I would feel this way about Little Gulls if I was just going around the University Parks.

There is also an element of the law of diminishing returns beginning to kick in, combined with a perception that the quality of birding at the site is decreasing. I'll use the gull roost as an example of this saturation effect. Through the the winter of 2024/2025, I've had 60 "bird-days" of Caspian Gull according to my eBird records. This metric, often used by bird observatories, is the accumulated encounters for a species, not considering whether individuals seen on subsequent days refer to the same bird. There have likely been up to fifteen different birds in the roost this winter. This is in stark contrast to when I first started birding the meadow, when we were lucky to get five bird-days, usually involving just one or two individuals. I still remember how I excited I was when I finally managed to pick out one by myself on the Meadow. It was a stunning 1cy in November - I had found a few previously in London and Kent so I knew what to look for but wasn't very confident. Now I must have seen hundreds in Oxfordshire.

Caspian Gulls have of course become much more common throughout Britain and there is also an observer effect as I've gradually improved at identifying them - particularly at long range, in poor light or as flyovers. They are now a staple of the winter roost, just like Yellow-legged Gull. The apparent devaluing of Caspian Gull as a patch bird, therefore, has implications for motivation through the winter. Instead of there being a bit of excitement when one is recorded, it has become a case of "just another Caspian Gull" or indeed it actually being a bad day when I fail to find one in the roost! This is combined with the decline in records of white-wingers - the last Iceland Gull that I found was in 2018, and I've yet to even see Glaucous Gull on the meadow. I doubt I ever will at this rate. Overall, it means that the roost offers far lower levels of satisfaction than it previously did, and it really has become of case of wondering whether it's worth getting numb fingers and eyestrain when the potential reward seems so low, despite paradoxically recording more Caspian Gulls than ever before. The "carrot" of an Iceland Gull, for example, no longer really exists in an Oxfordshire context - there just isn't a bird that has a reasonable chance of occurring a few times in a winter to spur you on. 

The counter to this, of course, is being able to appreciate that most inland patches don't get 60 bird-days of Caspian Gulls in a winter, so it's not like the fact that they've become more common has devalued them as a patch bird across the board. Port Meadow is clearly special in this regard. Still, there is only a limited amount of satisfaction to be gained from competing with other patches, e.g. in the Patchwork Challenge. I think the main motivator is usually competing against yourself - or perhaps if you're unusually antagonistic, against the other birders also working your patch...

I think that the "optimal" period in a patch birding lifetime, at least for me, lies somewhere in the middle - once you've seen most of the common species and acquired a level of familiarity and experience with the site, but before the law of diminishing returns hits and those new and exciting moments become few and far between. I'm sure that many people can just appreciate their patch for what it is but I don't think I can. Maybe I require moving around a bit to prevent my birding feeling stale and frustrating.

Anyway - I'll have a bit of a reset this weekend with a trip to Portland. Hoopoes and Blue-headed Wagtails await.

Mid-March update

Male White Wagtail on Port Meadow

An exceptionally disappointing series of visits to the patch over the last ten days has honestly left me wondering if it's worth bothering at all. In a week where inland patchers have been rewarded with good numbers of Little Gulls, Kittiwakes, Avocets, Rock Pipits and Brent Geese (many of which have occurred not too far from here), there has still been nothing interesting to report on the meadow - and it's not even like we've been getting more of the expected migrants through in numbers to make up for that. No sign of any Garganey, nor Black-tailed Godwits or Ruff; in fact, there has been only the merest indication that spring migration is getting underway at all.

Waders have been limited to the odd Oystercatcher still going through, a handful of Dunlin and Golden Plover, and up to 15 Redshank, which are clearly roosting somewhere in the ditch along Burgess Field and flying noisily onto the flood each morning, with numbers peaking in the evening.

Dunlin are just beginning to moult into their breeding plumage

These Redshank images were all taken with the 2x extender and are some of my best results using this combination for fast flight shots

Little Ringed Plovers have been present most days and have begun showing much better as the floods recede - it was good to see a group of six together on 20th March.

A pair - female on right

This individual was flying around the flood with its legs dangling underneath it in an oddly petrel-like fashion - I saw it walking around normally earlier so I have no idea why it chose to behave in such an odd way despite seemingly being uninjured. Experimenting here with a composite photo sequence to show the strange flight jizz.

The roost is now mostly composed of small gulls, with a few straggler Yellow-legged Gulls and a couple of late Great Black-backed Gulls. I've only seen two Caspian Gulls (a 2cy and a 3cy), but both have been new birds - a welcome change from the regular contingent that have been present all winter. March/April is quite a good time for changeover of large gulls as they migrate back to the continent so fingers crossed for a white-winger (or better).

I was very pleased to capture this 3cy Caspian Gull long-calling in the roost on 14th March - in fact it was audible from the viewpoint at Burgess Field gate, bringing back memories of hearing them coming in to bread on the Thames in London

Some absolutely incredible light that evening - as you can see from the photo below only a tiny patch of the water was lit up in this way, and luckily there were a few Black-headed Gulls swimming around in it

Still fewer Mediterranean Gulls than I would expect although it was good to see a pair together on 13th March - they were courting a little in the roost.

Smaller head/bill on the female of the pair clearly visible

This lone bird dropped in briefly late one afternoon and didn't stay to roost

Sand Martins have continued to feature in low numbers with a high count of ten briefly over the floods in the morning of 21st March. I also had the first Swallow of the year through north that same evening. I'm not sure if I have ever recorded Swallow in March on Port Meadow before.

A few alba White Wagtails have started appearing and I must admit I've struggled a bit with the identification - it almost feels that my calibration is off compared with previous years. Apart from a few striking male individuals, I've been umm-ing and ah-ing over a lot of candidates especially when distant and in poor light. My claim of ten birds on 19th March was, in reflection, almost certainly over-enthusiastic. In fact, it seems that the more I look through the hoards of Pied Wagtails, the more confused I'm becoming with regards to separating alba from the palest yarrellii - perhaps best to play it safe and only claim the obvious ones from now on.

A classic male alba - the grey rump and clean white flanks clearly visible in these photos

Contrast this individual with the images above, a heavy crop taken in worse light - clearly a sharp demarcation between the nape and mantle and indeed a shade lighter than the nearby Pieds, but the grey on the flanks extends quite far down below the wings and the rump looked pretty dark in flight. I think it probably is an alba, but you can see the potential problems distinguishing birds like this at range.

Up to 40 Meadow Pipits have been associating with the wagtails, but nothing rarer amongst them yet

Aside from these I've managed to add a few more species to my patch year list - an evening spent with the thermal imager on 13th March was eventually rewarded with a Jack Snipe, two Ring-necked Parakeets on 20th March were only my second ever patch record, and a flyover Redpoll on 22nd March was pleasing to hear in what has been an unusually poor winter for this species in the county. I've also had a couple of Raven sightings.

One of the few highlights of this period has been the Siberian Chiffchaff I found on 11th March deciding to hang around and start singing. The bird is now more advanced in moult with many of its head feathers obviously in pin - luckily the song makes up for what it currently lacks in aesthetics. I've managed to obtain a couple of sound recordings that I'm relatively pleased with, and it's certainly been a good decision to carry the recorder around with me at all times. The song is very quiet compared to the colybitta Chiffchaffs and my initial attempts contained a lot of background noise - however, I've been experimenting with high-pass filters and noise reduction tools in Audacity and have managed to remove most of it. One of the recordings embedded below was actually taken whilst a plane was flying directly overhead, which I hope is no longer audible.

Current state of the bird

A few miscellaneous shots from Port Meadow to finish with. I'd prefer the next post to be rather less photo-heavy and instead more to write home about in terms of interesting records...

The weasel has still been showing well in the ditch!

Close pass by a Peregrine

I think this is probably my favourite image from the set simply because of the pose, although I was struggling to choose just one!

Yesterday evening a Darvic-ringed juvenile Peregrine was hunting over the floods, and although it failed to catch anything I was able to capture a good sequence of photos as it sped past. Despite again being heavy crops I think these are an improvement on the Peregrine images I have taken on the meadow previously. I've reproduced the best photos here in the order that they were taken.