Patch geese

The reality of urban birding - rare grey geese about to be flushed by a dog!

It's been quite a while since my last blog post. Despite saying that I would be writing about an exciting autumn of migration, I ended up burning myself out so badly that I had basically vowed to take some time away from the hobby at least in the context of trying to find my own rare birds. I had a big trip to South Africa planned for 18th November to 10th December and I decided to focus on that rather than occupy myself with any more thoughts of rarities, twitching and British birding in general.

There are a few reasons for this - partly because despite touring several coastal hotspots this autumn I didn't find anything of note, a situation exacerbated by the continued discovery of rare birds back in Oxfordshire; hence, there was a feeling of not being rewarded for my time and therefore failing to get much enjoyment out of it. In hindsight, this probably wasn't quite true, and I still had a few fantastic experiences (e.g. being at the Wirral on a big Leach's Petrel day). Unfortunately it really gets to me when others continue to find rare birds when I perceive myself to be putting in an equal/more substantial effort - I have a hard time telling myself that the main determinant is just luck.

Leach's Petrel at Leasowe

In addition, I didn't enjoy my ringing trip to Cornwall for various reasons and therefore was put off writing about it. Perhaps that's a story for later. Another week on Portland resulted only in finding a second Grey Phalarope and a Woodlark whilst unfortunately missing a flyover Richard's Pipit (which in my already jaded state was quite the blow). The trip was just about saved by twitching a Pallas' Warbler, but overall I left with very little enthusiasm remaining for British birding. The only other birding I did before going to South Africa was twitching Pallid Swifts and Dusky Warbler in Kent.

Two Pallid Swifts at North Foreness

So that brings us to South Africa, which will be the subject of a separate set of blog posts. Needless to say the trip was very successful - amazing country, wildlife and experience more generally. I'm not sure that I've been converted to the idea of primarily doing this hobby from a world birding perspective, but seeing 469 species in the space of just three weeks was incredible. Many of these were endemics and visually spectacular. It felt very weird not knowing how to identify a large proportion of the birds whilst still being pretty adept at spotting/hearing them, and moving around the country so much meant that there was a continued flow of new species to learn. A sneak preview here of two of my favourite photos from the trip - a chance for some proper bird photography rather than just aiming at specks and hoping for the best like I usually do. The first blog post to come will be an overview of the itinerary and logistics and I think the rest of the trip divides quite nicely into five further posts.

Southern Yellow-billed Hornbill

Chorister Robin-chat

Since getting back I hadn't done any birding and I resolved to keep it that way at least until the New Year. I'm currently staying in London and don't really have a patch here, so even if I hadn't already decided to lay off the birding for a bit there would have been little temptation to get out anyway. However, a flow of freezing northeasterlies in the run-up to Christmas, originating deep in Europe, has resulted in a spectacular influx of wild geese into Britain. I was getting increasingly gripped by the reports of Russian White-fronted and Bean Geese popping up everywhere, well away from traditional East Coast haunts - including in Oxfordshire. The discovery of a 15-strong flock of Bean Geese on Otmoor made my mind up. Going all the way from London on Christmas Day would be ridiculous (bordering on deranged), but Boxing Day seemed socially acceptable. I had two aims - connect with the Bean Geese flock and then try to find my own wild geese on Port Meadow.

Why am I still focused on the patch despite apparently having left Oxford? Because it's an addiction... Well, I have a short stint back in the city from mid-January to the beginning of April and I had briefly been to Port Meadow twice this autumn when visiting friends. Surprisingly I actually enjoyed these short walks on the patch - the floods had refilled and even just with bins I saw an adult Mediterranean Gull come in to roost. Perhaps not obsessively going there every day is what's needed to keep it fresh.

In addition, there is something about wild geese that I find really evocative and apart from a flyover Pink-footed Goose I had never seen any on Port Meadow - it's something of a black hole for White-fronted Geese, partially due to the presence of a feral flock of gambelli for a few years which made it hard to be sure that any new arrivals weren't derived from these escapes. During the 2020/2021 winter White-fronted Goose influx I was convinced that I would find some on Port Meadow, and became increasingly despondent as the flock on Otmoor built up to over 120. No luck despite these huge numbers just a few miles away! I remembered that there was far more visible movement in the first week of the influx (which was correlated with birds being displaced due to heavy fog), before flocks settled down in favoured areas for the rest of the winter. I imagine that Port Meadow is too disturbed for wild geese to feel comfortable, so knew that my best chance of success would be to visit as soon as possible.

I arrived in Oxford mid-morning on Boxing Day and waited first for news of the Tundra Bean Geese, before planning to walk along the Thames towpath and do the Port Meadow roost. News of the Beans at Water Eaton resulted in a literal wild goose chase - I arrived, walked onto the site and no sooner had I begun to scan the fields a negative report was put out as the flock was apparently back on Otmoor! I headed straight there and briskly walked along the towpath to the Wetlands Watch hide. I quickly located a long, distant string of geese way out on Ashgrave towards Noke Farm, and started searching through them. It took a few minutes to find the first White-fronted Goose; then immediately afterwards I noticed the Tundra Beans behind it. Success! They were surprisingly hard to see as they kept walking behind undulations in the ground and going down into a pool to wash - I certainly saw at least 16, which corroborates with the total count of 18 from others earlier that morning. The birds were so far away and in such bad light that I didn't even bother to get the camera out, so only took a couple of digiscoped record shots.

I had my lunch in the hide tallying up White-fronted Geese (approximately 50 across Big Otmoor and Ashgrave) before driving to Godstow. The car park there is now pay and display which is rather annoying, so I parked in the village and walked to the Trout. It was a crisp and bright day but seriously cold, and I have been struggling to spend long periods outside recently without getting numb hands (e.g. whilst cycling). I walked across Godstow Lock and saw the resident flock of feral Greylag and Canada Geese milling around by the river. Immediately I noticed a group of smaller grey geese amongst them - success! Will they be Beans or White-fronts, I thought as I lifted my bins, although knew deep down that such a large group would almost certainly be the latter. Still absolutely wonderful to see and I have manifested finding a large flock on Port Meadow for so long.

There was one flock of 15 birds all together and 6 more off to the side. I watched them for a few minutes through bins, checking that all were 100% Russian White-fronted Geese rather than Greenland (a seriously rare bird in the county), and noted that quite a high proportion of the birds were juveniles. They became more alert as some walkers with dogs approached and I knew what was going to happen - surely enough after a few repeated runs by the dogs all of the geese took to the air, most settling again on the river but the White-fronts seemed rather more wary and began circling.

Quite a few immature birds visible in these images

I suspected that they would eventually settle on the floods and so continued down the river towards the Perch to set up my scope for the roost. I encountered the (presumed feral) Ross's Goose showing nicely with a few Canada Geese further down the river - I'm aware that this bird is contentious amongst the year-listers as it counts on the eBird leaderboard despite being obviously duff. A nice male Goosander also offered some unusually close views.

The river had broken its banks recently and the waters were now receding , so most of the gulls and wildfowl were far away on the main flood rather than on the line of islands that sometimes form when the water levels are at their highest. In these conditions diving ducks sometimes visit the floods and I was pleased to see a Tufted Duck swimming amongst the Wigeon and Teal, along with a few Pintail. Three Black-tailed Godwits had joined the Lapwings although there were no Golden Plovers today.

Grainy videograb of the Godwits

As expected, the White-fronted Geese flew in from the north calling and settled on a spit near the river, just like their feral counterparts used to do each evening. They were a real feature of the Port Meadow roost for a few years, usually coming in after dark and accompanied by a couple of Bar-headed Geese and some hybrid offspring. I've not seen them regularly for a while although they may be lurking elsewhere in the county.

I turned my attention towards the gulls and quickly found an adult Caspian Gull preening on an island, together with a few Common Gulls and a pair of unseasonal Shelduck. James Hammond and Ben Sheldon arrived to see the geese so the Caspian Gull was a nice bonus.

A second Caspian Gull soon appeared, initially swimming around on the water and later joining the first individual roosting on and island. In the field I called this bird as a subadult (4cy) due to slightly more black in the wing tip and some dark markings around the bill, but having looked at the video stills all the primary coverts look plain grey and adult-type to me, so that's what it should probably go down as. I found a third Caspian Gull, a 2cy, at last light. At least three Yellow-legged Gulls were also present in the roost.

The second adult Caspian Gull - shorter tongues on the primaries than the first

Both birds together

2cy Caspian Gull - not the best looking bird

At dusk all the birds were flushed by something unseen and the White-fronted Geese took off to the north. As far as I'm aware they haven't been seen today so it seems like I timed my visit perfectly. The walk back to Godstow was long and cold - we heard a Tawny Owl calling and despite Ben's best attempts to avoid looking at the Ross's Goose it has been added to the year list!

Quite a nice day out in the end with all targets achieved - perhaps the only way it could have been better would be finding Tundra Bean Geese as well but that'll have to be the carrot on a stick for the rest of the winter. In recent years (although before my time) I think there has only been one record of this species, in April. It was considered an escape, so it's a real patch mega and I am eagerly anticipating adding it to my list along with Brent Goose - there seem to be a few displaced inland with the recent weather.

A lovely purple hue after sunset

What I have found with patch birding is that the scarce migrants do seem to occur when expected, usually off the back of some sort of influx. This has been the case for several of my most recent patch ticks - White-fronted Goose, Crossbill, Kittiwake, Hawfinch, and Yellow-browed Warbler. For each of these there has been some "event" which has prompted me to be particularly attentive out or alter my search to maximise my chances of connecting with them. In this (rather extreme) instance I ended up driving two hours back to Oxford and walking the northern end of the Meadow, which I never usually do. Sometimes you do have to wait for a few national influxes to occur before striking lucky, like with these geese, but targeted searching does seem to pay off in the end. It's the really rare birds that occur randomly out of the blue and require you to put in some serious hours to have a chance of finding one.