Local birding

Wheatear, Port Meadow

I seem to be blogging more infrequently of late, despite working on several good ideas for blog posts. I think this is linked to wanting to deliver a higher quality product - almost writing each post like a magazine article, with a planned narrative and plenty of time spent editing it. The benefit of this is that it seems to have drawn in a larger readership base, but the downside is that I'm choosing to miss out some "everyday" birding reports in favour of these longer, more structured posts.

Hence returning to a more basic format now that autumn is underway. Port Meadow is still dry, although it has experienced a bit of passerine migration recently, mostly through Burgess Field. I'm pleased to report that I've had three more patch ticks since my last update - all being species that I had predicted on my target list. The first of these was Crossbill on 12th June, which was entirely anticipated given the widespread influx at the start of the summer. It flew low east calling over the southern end of the meadow, offering some decent views. I've since had another heard only over the same area, although on both instances I've not had my sound recorder running!

The recorder was, however, instrumental in confirming my next patch tick - Tree Pipit. I'd been going out in the morning specifically to look for this species (an absolutely glaring omission) and hadn't really been experiencing much overhead passage of any birds. I'd recently upgraded my sound recording kit to a Zoom F3 with an EM272 capsule microphone so was keen to test its capabilities. On 14th August I thought I heard a distant, single call from a Tree Pipit and made a mental note to check the recording afterwards. Low and behold, listening back it's quite clearly a Tree Pipit, although due to being so distant the spectrogram is rather smudged. I've found that despite lacking an amplification effect (as in a parabolic) or filtering out off-axis sounds (as in a shotgun), the non-directional clippy capsule generally picks up anything that I am able to hear with my ears, and as long as noise levels are low, distant sounds can then be amplified a considerable amount by adjusting the gain level using post-processing software.

I've since had three more Tree Pipits on/around the patch including a fantastic bird calling low and loudly over my head as I walked down Walton Street and another mist-netted on Burgess Field - always great to see this species in the hand and look at the more subtle ways that it differs from Meadow Pipit. Almost seems unbelievable that I'd not had it in previous years, although I guess I wasn't really out walking much in the mornings before.

My third patch tick took me somewhat by surprise. I was walking through Burgess Field on 18th August when I was halted in my tracks by the "pichuu" call of a Marsh Tit, which then showed exceptionally well as the tit flock moved through bushes along the path. I always thought that I would see this species on a winter bird feeder, as I have with Coal Tit in the past (although this is a much more common species in gardens throughout the city centre). At this time of year, this individual is probably a disperser from Wytham Woods.

These three ticks bring me to 163 for the patch list - well short of the 170 I was hoping to achieve on patch, but I guess with the terrible weather for spring birding this was to be expected. There is still clearly a lot of passerine migration through Burgess Field at the moment and the number of birds caught at our weekly ringing sessions have been unusually high - sessions with 146 and 213 birds, for example. The majority of these have been migrant warblers such as Chiffchaffs and Blackcaps, which is quite exciting for an urban site, where catches tended to be dominated by garden birds such as tits and finches.

Stonechat trapped and ringed on Burgess Field

Other than that, I've had a couple apiece of Redstart, Wheatear, Sedge and Reed Warbler, as well as a few Spotted Flycatchers. Whinchat has eluded me so far, and it may be getting a bit late for that, although the first Stonechat of the autumn was trapped and ringed at the weekend. Pied Flycatcher seems like a pipe dream at this point! The autumnal feel has been continuing with a couple of days of good vismig in light southwesterlies. On these mornings there has been a continuous passage of Meadow Pipits (a few hundred, some of which we've managed to trap and ring), Swallows, House Martins and the first Siskins and Redpoll over.

Wheatear

Spotted Flycatcher

1cy male Redstart - this individual set up a little territory for a couple of days and was constantly calling from its favoured bush

Away from patch I've been visiting Farmoor and Otmoor a bit to try and clean up on some waders for the year list and was pleased to see Wood Sandpiper and Little Stint on a couple of occasions.

Wood Sandpiper and Green Sandpiper, Otmoor

Fascinating to see that the stint was mostly eating flies in the evening

Farmoor also produced a stunning adult Little Gull on 2nd September which performed almost as well as the Port Meadow bird last winter - calling and dip-feeding just a few metres away.

On 16th September I successfully twitched a Manx Shearwater which luckily was found early morning and news released promptly, which is not at all a given for Farmoor these days. This was my third at the reservoir and the most lively-looking one so far, which was good to see. It was flying around F2 in the evening - the absolutely bizarre sight of it being mobbed by the long-staying Caspian Gull was one of my Oxfordshire birding highlights of the autumn so far.

Rubbish pics compared to some of the frame-fillers taken earlier in the day but rather more evocative, I think, conjuring up images of a seawatch rather than a lost bird on a reservoir. I suspect the image of it with the Caspian Gull could well be unique in British birding!

The first Rock Pipit of the autumn flew in to the causeway during a rain shower on the evening of 18th September - I actually heard it from inside the hide and was pleased to find it showing well upon running outside. A particularly dark and swarthy individual, and since it arrived on a relatively early date it's tempting to conclude that this might be a dispersing juvenile petrosus rather than littoralis (which are apparently the norm inland in autumn/winter).

Overall a good mix of birds seen on patch and further afield, although time is running out to find something actually decent before I leave Oxford for the rest of the autumn.

The other activity which has been taking up a fair bit of my time recently has been nocmig. Using a homemade parabolic reflector, I've had some success with a few interesting records, although I've yet to have it out on a night with heavy passage and most times I check the recorder I get nothing at all! I've recorded two Grey Plover, two Whimbrel, Ringed Plover and perhaps best of all an Avocet on 24th August - which has dubiously made it onto my total for the eBird year listing competition! Passerines have been limited to three Tree Pipits and a single Spotted Flycatcher although I guess we've yet to hit autumn thrush passage. I was hoping for Ortolan Bunting but there were limited nights with good southeasterlies and low cloud.

The sound quality is not great, especially as it uses my older, rather noisy Zoom H4n pro, and the design of the microphone rather dubious - a paired stereo set of EM272s with a 3.5mm jack, which is useless for stereo sound if placed next to each other at the focal point of the parabola without some sort of separating baffle. The parabola itself, bought cheaply online, is also rather floppy and asymmetrical. Overall it's clear that an upgrade is required and I'm still deciding what's the best product to buy (Dodotronic? Wildtronics? Telinga?) so any recommendations are appreciated.