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!