Last days in Oxford

1w male Bluethroat, Otmoor

Up until today I was pretty certain that my last few days as a permanent resident of Oxfordshire would end with a whimper rather than a bang. My efforts on Port Meadow to yield just one more good bird have largely failed - vismig has tailed off in the low winds, with only dregs of Meadow Pipit and hirundine passage, although a few Skylarks and Song Thrushes have seemingly started moving now.

When there are no birds to look at on the meadow at least the weather usually provides some interest - this is a "fog bow", an apparently rare phenomenon which I've never seen before. It started as a small pale area in the haze and then broadened out into a arc, which got fainter and wider as the sun rose higher.

A protracted Sunday stomp around the entire meadow did, however, produce a Glossy Ibis - a bird so high on my "expected" list, given the recent influx, that it barely felt like an achievement at all. I had actually stopped to sit down in Burgess Field when it appeared above the tree tops, presumably having flown right over the roofs of the houses in Jericho, and continued west less than ten metres above my head. Unfortunately I was facing straight into the sun, but I've managed to recover a bit of detail from the dark areas in the photos.

This is the seventh Glossy Ibis I have seen on patch and the fifth I've found (including the flock of three). I suspect if there was some water on the meadow at the moment we would have had several already! A flock of three Goosander north along the river was also notable for the early date.

I had resigned myself to the fact that this would probably be the last good bird I saw in Oxfordshire for the time being, so I was in slight disbelief yesterday upon receiving the news that a Bluethroat had been found at Otmoor by Jeremy Dexter, who is really on a roll this year - having also found Marsh Sandpiper and Green-winged Teal. The timing was terrible - I had just been on a cycle ride and it was my last evening in Oxford. The next day, I would have to pack everything up before driving four hours to Flamborough. There was no chance of trying to connect that night, so I decided to set my alarm for 5am and just power through.

Photos of the bird were posted on the blog and I checked these with some relief before going to bed, having felt rather uneasy beforehand. I awoke after a fitful night's sleep (dreaming, bizarrely, of losing my favourite birding hat) and arrived in the Otmoor car park at 05:45. One other car pulled up - Dave Lowe. Clearly this was the hard core contingent, and I was glad for some company on the long walk to screen two. The sun was just starting to rise, and we were joined by Max Buckley, who had run from his house to add the bird to an "on foot" twitching list.

Pete Roby, Adam Hartley, Wayne Paes and Simon Myers were next to arrive, just as it turned light enough to begin scanning along the edges of the reeds. I called a passerine sp. moving along the edge of the pool - Sedge Warbler, looking decidedly rare. The next false alarm was a Dunnock. There had also been a Spotted Redshank reported, of which there was no sign.

I had just started to hear some murmurings of discontent when I saw a movement in the reeds that I knew was the Bluethroat. It was much further away than the cut area by a pool where the bird had been seen yesterday, but from the way it moved I was pretty certain this had to be it. I tried to get everyone onto the area where I was looking, but there were really no landmarks to use except for individual white feathers washed up on the shoreline and a sleeping Snipe. The exasperation and panic that followed in the next few minutes, was, looking back at the video I took, absolute comedy gold - but in the moment it was intensely stressful. There is always a lot of pressure if you are the first one to get onto the bird at a twitch, and the Bluethroat was not behaving - constantly flitting in and out of the reeds and barely showing at all. I think Adam was next to get onto it, followed by Pete, but it took several minutes for everyone to connect with the bird.

The Bluethroat reached the pool where it had been seen yesterday as a few more people arrived, and became marginally easier to see as it worked its way along the cut reeds lining the pool. My attempts at stills photos were totally unsuccessful, but even in the gloom I was able to get some record video footage which I was quite pleased with, and the stills are taken from this clip. It ended up showing quite well for about ten minutes before disappearing round a corner into the reeds, which I took as my cue to leave.

Turn up the video quality!

What a fantastic bird. I've seen a few in Britain previously but I don't think any have conjured up the excitement of this one. It was also really nice to get to see everyone at the twitch and say goodbye on my last day - almost mythical the way this has turned out.

There is a possibility that I'll be in Oxford for a short period early next year doing some non-academic work, but not confirmed yet and not sure if I'll have much time for birding, so this is a nice note to end on I think. I have started writing a blog post summarising my time birding in Oxfordshire but it's beginning to balloon into a self-indulgent essay, so it needs focusing before I publish it. Just about survived the journey to Flamborough so hopefully over the next few days there'll a few things still kicking around from the easterlies last week.