With overhead migration calming down (in fact grinding to halt, there was none this morning) it feels as if we are moving into winter proper. The solid grey skies of the last week, and the terrible news from the American election results today, added to the slightly flat feel. But there were thrushes. Fieldfares are regular winter visitors to urban Oxford, but are nearly always seen, and heard, flying over. On a couple of occasions in the last six years, Fieldfares have come down to feed on berry trees, but believe it or not, this is the first time that I’ve seen one on the ground here:
I was quite pleased and assumed that this was probably going to be the highlight from today’s patch visit. The Fieldfares had joined about 15 Redwings that were feeding in rowan trees on the golf course. Their presence was driving the local Mistle Thrushes into a fury, their alarm calls were angrily ringing all around. I scanned through the trees, counting thrush numbers until I was brought to a halt by the rear end of a bird, perched at the back of the tree. The short tail, the long white wing-bar, framed by dark primaries below it and an evenly brown back above it, could only mean one thing: there was a Hawfinch in the tree in front of me. In Oxford city!
Having recorded a pair of flyover Hawfinch last week, I was on the alert for further flyovers, but had not dreamt that I would find a feeding bird, perched up on my patch. This was a fantastic moment!
Trying not to move in case I disturbed it, yet wanting a slightly better view, I shuffled a little to my left. This gave me decent binocular views of most of the bird, including the massive bill, orange head and black eye mask. The light was terrible, which meant that the photos were too, but the key features can be seen:
The Hawfinch fed for a few more seconds, doing it’s best Waxwing impression by appearing to take rowan berries from the tree:
And then, typically for this species, it simply disappeared into thin air. I scanned through the tree numerous times and eventually circled the tree, but saw or heard no further sign of this fabulous species. How many more Hawfinches are out there? Will there be more?! At the moment, it feels like the sky is the limit as to what may turn up next, expectation levels are dangerously high!
No-one was more ready for a Hawfinch flyover than me. I had refreshed my search image of flying birds and I had listened to recordings of flight calls on a daily basis.
Search image: chunky, short-tailed, big-headed, with a huge translucent wingbar (picture from the last big irruption, winter 2017/18).
I had also refined my flight call sound recording technique, positioning my recorder with the microphone pointing straight up, a meter or so from where I stood, watching the sky. This enabled me to review interesting flight calls and capture the important ones. And still they nearly got past me.
I had been out watching and listening to bird migration for the first hour of light pretty much every day for the last week. Reports of Hawfinches passing over local sites kept me motivated, but after a combined total of about eight hours of watching I was beginning to wonder if any were ever going fly over this small, green patch of urban Oxford.
At 7:15am on Tuesday 30th October, after about half an hour of watching and listening to light overhead bird migration, I heard a series of sharp, high-pitched flight calls, from above and almost behind me. They sounded a bit like a Meadow Pipit calling whilst 1,000 volts were being passed through it. Or more accurately, a repeated high-pitched “tsick“.
I whirled around and just got onto the source of the calls: two large, short-tailed finches that flew low and fast away from me, disappearing over the trees on Hill Top Road, to the west. No real plumage details could be made out but all my instincts were that those birds were probably Hawfinches. Now it was down to the sound recorder to confirm the identification.
Fortunately, my recorder had picked up the flight calls, even over the sounds of a local dog walker passing by and the banging of building work at the Warneford Hospital site. The calls are classic Hawfinch flight calls, an inverted v-shaped call at the 7-9 kHz range. Typical Hawfinch, completely distinctive, yet somehow easy to overlook.
The last big Hawfinch year, the winter of 2017/18, was just before I began regularly watching the Lye Valley area. Phil Barnett found a small flock of Hawfinches in the Lye Valley woods in February 2018. I wondered how it would ever be possible to see this elusive species here again? Fortunately, this year’s irruption of Hawfinches from continental Europe has provided just that opportunity. Species number 111 for the Lye Valley bird list and for me!
Today was a truly fateful day. Seeing me about the leave the house to begin local patch visit number 684, my 12-year-old daughter asked me, “Daddy, what do you hope to see today?” I didn’t think, the words “Yellow-browed Warbler” seemed obvious. “It’s a rare bird in Oxfordshire but there have been lots on the east coast and one or two might stop off inland. But I’ll take anything.”
Once out in Warneford Meadow, the overhead migration was obvious. Not huge numbers of birds, but first light saw Redwings and a few Meadow Pipits and Eurasian Skylarks flying overhead, beneath a light cover of cloud. As the cloud broke up and was replaced by blue skies and sunshine, Barn Swallows started moving. Nearly everything was heading south-west.
I checked the bushes around the meadow and then crossed the golf course. The large areas of scrub near the public footpath can attract migrant birds, but nothing prepared me for when I found myself very briefly locking eyes with what I felt sure was a Marsh Tit. There has been only one previous record of Marsh Tit in the last six years, this was not a bird that I wanted to let go. A few nervous minutes passed before it appeared again, this time giving great views for a few seconds in the scrub. Just like the first record, this Marsh Tit was very mobile, looking like a migrant passing through.
Chasing 40
Delighted with what was already a superb morning, I continued onwards, checking the Lye Valley woods, where a Eurasian Treecreeper was calling, and Churchill Meadow. By the time I was at the top of the Lye Valley, I had recorded 39 species, my best total of the year so far. But I also noted that I had been let down by some common species that I record on most patch visits: Blackcap, Stock Dove, European Herring and Lesser Black-backed Gull, in particular. With early morning gull movement over and Blackcaps becoming much less common by early October, I figured my best chance to get to 40 species today would be to walk back towards Warneford Meadow to try to add Stock Dove to the day list. For only the second time ever, I turned around and walked back across my patch and past the Churchill Hospital. How fate hangs on these small decisions.
A flock of 4 Great Cormorants passed overhead, taking me to 40 species for the visit and justifying my retraced steps. The small Boundary Brook valley is full of elder trees. Stock Doves sometimes perch up here, warming themselves in the early morning sun. I paused on the footpath by the hospital, scanning the elder trees. A small flock of Western House Martins flew over, and the first Eurasian Siskins of the year passed overhead, calling.
There is a movement in a nearby willow tree. It is a warbler. “That looks small,” I think to myself and I raise my binoculars:
The huge supercilium and the double wing bars that adorn this tiny green and white warbler, nearly knock me off my feet. “Yellow-browed Warbler!” my brain screams, as a wave of adrenaline washes over me. I fire off a few pictures as the bird pauses on the edge of the willow, a tiny visitor from Siberia:
The Lye Valley’s first-ever Yellow-browed Warbler then flies into the denser cover of the valley. Despite the intense levels of adrenaline, I start recording bird calls, just in case it calls. Fortunately, it does:
A few minutes later the Yellow-browed Warbler flies back to the willow tree where I first saw it, before returning again to the cover of the valley. I wait another fifteen minutes, but see or hear no further sign of the bird. I use this time to put the news out on the local Whatsapp group. Unfortuntely I did not see Stock Dove, but 43 species in a couple of hours in Headington is a fine haul.
Dream patch find
Yellow-browed Warbler is a dream patch find. Rare enough in the county to attract interest, but common enough nationally to be a viable target for local patch watchers. This was the first Yellow-browed Warbler in Oxfordshire this year and about the 26th ever, as per the county annual reports. The recent increase in records of this species is obvious:
In other times, I would have spent the rest of today drunk on champagne, celebrating a superb patch find. These days, I’ll just be smiling all weekend. After all, there is always tomorrow morning.
I began exploring the Lye Valley area in early 2019, following a serious running injury, which meant that my first few visits were on crutches. The Lye Valley area is an eclectic mix of habitats, containing what was “Oxfordshire’s first lunatic asylum“, a WWII hospital, a golf course and an 8,000-year-old alkaline fen with Special Scientific Status. These are not typical habitats for finding a variety of birds and there was no open water, but the position of the Lye Valley area, in an elevated location on the edge of a small escarpement overlooking east Oxford and the River Thames, meant that some migrant birds might be found too.
With regular coverage, a surpringsingly diverse selcetion of bird species were recorded, including the first county scarcity, a Pied Flycatcher, found in August 2019 with Dave Lowe. This new booklet, published by the Oxford Ornithological Society, describes the birds found in this green corner of urban east Oxford over the period 2019-2023.
Here is a little preview of this new report:
This new booklet uses data from over 800 eBird checklists submitted during the 2019-2023 period to describe the occurrence, arrival/departure dates and high counts of local breeding birds. As hoped, this green area surrounded by housing and hospitals also attracted a variety of migrant birds. Through their migration routes, these birds connect urban east Oxford to sub-Saharan Africa in the south and to the Arctic tundra in the north. The Birds of the Lye Valley Area draws all these bird records together, beautifully illustrated by the author’s photographs. Or so he tells us. Order a copy today! This bird report is a not-for-profit publication, any surplus funds raised from sales will go to the Oxford Ornithological Society.
Having equalled my all-time total of 81 bird species recorded in the Lye Valley area of Headington in 2022, what would 2023 bring? This area (the Lye Valley LNR, Southfield Golf Course, Warneford Meadow and the Boundary Brook Wildlife Corridor) is surrounded by the housing of east Oxford and has the Old Road Campus and the Churchill Hospital within it. I have had an MRI scan and COVID-19 vaccinations on my local patch, bringing new meaning to the concept of total birding.
January 1st 2023 could have hardly begun any better: 40 species recorded, my best on this date, and a new species for the area – Firecrest – all in the first couple of hours of light. The checklist is here. That the first visit produced 45% of all the bird species that would be recorded in the whole year says much about the variety of urban birding and the patience needed. That first day also saw a flyover Skylark and a wintering Chiffchaff, neither guaranteed in January:
A bitterly cold spell in the second-half of January, covered the local Moorhens in ice…
… but brought in some common winter birds, such as Redwings:
There were also uncommon visitors. The second Common Gull ever flew over, and a Snipe was seen on several visits. January 23rd was a Lapwing day, with 58 flying south in small flocks:
There then followed a superb burst of good birds. Steve Sansom glimpsed a Water Rail on 24th, and I managed to relocate it the following morning, the first for the Lye Valley area:
Two Goosander flew over on the 28th, yet another second-ever record here, one of the themes of the year. This brought the January total to 55 species, and already 63% of the total number of species for the year had been recorded:
February was much quieter, but more new species for the year were added in March, with a flyover flock of Golden Plover on 8th and the beginning of waterbird migration which saw Canada Geese and Cormorants overhead and this Little Egret on the golf course:
And there were Grey Herons, both adults and young birds:
1st April saw the first trans-Saharan migrant arrive, a Willow Warbler, but the spring of 2023 turned out to be desperately quiet, with the only bird of note being a Brambling on April 17th:
Local breeders were all that I had to show for near-daily effort between mid-March and early May:
2023 was a good year for Garden Warblers, with one pair probably breeding:
It was superb to be able to hear Garden Warbler song on most visits between early May and early June:
With the addition of the common Warblers, Swift and Hobby, the year list stood at 74 species by 31st May, the highest total ever reached by this date. This total included the second patch record of Egyptian Geese, as a pair spent a long weekend on the golf course:
But as is often the case, the period between late May and August, the “death zone”, produced no new birds at all. I was reduced to photographing other things:
Fox cubEmperor Dragonfly, devouring a Small Copper butterflyI saw this Magpie, presumably feeding on ticks on this male Muntjac, on several occasions. Juvenile Green Woodpecker
The local Sparrowhawks had a successful season, fledging three young. Only when the first week of August arrived, and with it a returning Lesser Whitethroat, did the year list move on. An excellent January had been followed by a quiet spring and summer, but then came a truly astounding August. A number of Yellow Wagtails were heard and seen flying over. This year I made more efforts to record the flight calls of migrating birds:
This recording of a flyover Yellow Wagtail came out nicely. I like the way the flight call emerges from a background of calling Blue Tits and lawnmowers on the golf course, before the bird passes overhead, typical August birding here:
Nothing prepared me for the next three weeks. On 17th August I found a Corn Bunting on Warneford Meadow, the first Oxford city record since 1980 and the third new species for the Lye Valley in the year. It was quite a moment:
August 30th saw my first, and the Lye Valley’s second, Redstart. It very nearly stayed for a photo…
… and 2 Spotted Flycatchers on the same day:
Both these birds were eclipsed by a superb Pied Flycatcher, the second I’ve found in the Lye Valley area and found on my birthday and was the 81st species for the year, equalling my previous best annual total, so all the more sweet! This bird was one of only three seen in all of Oxfordshire during 2023:
A new Lye Valley area species total was set on September 16th when this Reed Bunting flew over calling. They all count!
The decline of House Martins across the county is very sad. This species has only been recorded in late September in recent years, as small flocks migrate south, passing low overhead in the first few hours of light. This year birds were recorded on September 20th and 23rd. A flyover Lesser Redpoll was species number 83 and was the last regular species that I needed… unless I got lucky with a Woodcock in the autumn. Then a couple of real surprises lifted the total to phenomenal heights. First, a Great White Egret circled over Churchill Meadow, followed a few days later by not one, but two, Great White Egrets and a Little Egret, amazing records for an area with no standing water:
Another flyover finch, the Lye Valley’s second Linnet, was seen and recorded flying south on October 23rd, species number 85:
There was also some decent Woodpigeon migration, with a peak movement of 920 birds in 90 minutes on 20th November:
I only had one target for November: Woodcock. Nearly all the previous Lye Valley records have been in this month, all four of them. On November 18th, in pouring rain, after much tramping through wooded areas, a Woodcock lifted from the ground under the trees by Boundary Brook stream, species number 86 for the year. And that was that. Or so I thought. I still visited regularly throughout December, but held out no realistic hope of adding another species. On December 27th, again in the rain at dawn, I splashed across a very wet Warneford Meadow and was astounded to flush a snipe, from just in front of me, on the edge of this wet patch:
In 573 previous patch visits, I have not flushed a snipe from Warneford Meadow. Even better, this bird looked tiny, rose silently, and flew low and direct into the long grass in the background. Surely this was a Jack Snipe? I walked towards the grass and the bird rose again, this time I got binocular views of it, and noted no obvious white on the trailing edge of the wing and two prominent gold scapular streaks. I thought it would land again, but at the last moment, it lifted off the meadow and flew north, at rooftop height, a stonking garden tick for somebody, if they were quick enough. An end-of-year surprise, species number 87 for the year, a cracking Jack Snipe!
What a year. I visited the Lye Valley area 153 times in 2023, recorded 87 bird species, three of which were new for the area (Firecrest, Water Rail and Corn Bunting). I walked some 800km, or 500 miles, and spent over 230 hours hours birding there. It has been a constant source of joy. Except for the Death Zone. Next year I will walk 500 miles more and will see what I can see. There is a song in there somewhere.
After the lull in migratory bird movement that is June and July – a period that I just about get through with gritted teeth – August brings more hope. The species that I target are Yellow Wagtail, Spotted Flycatcher and Tree Pipit. None are guaranteed in urban Oxford, but most years see one or two records of some of these species. Passerine migration kicked in early in the Lye Valley this year, with small numbers of juvenile Willow Warblers and the first Lesser Whitethroat of the year all being recorded in the first week of August. The first of the scarce August trio fell on 9th August, when a Yellow Wagtail flew over Warneford Meadow, calling loudly. There was then another quiet period, although large roving flocks of Tits, Chiffchaffs, Blackcaps and Willow Warblers kept up interest. Almost as soon as we entered the second half of August, I struck patch gold. A chunky-looking brown finch was flushed by a dog walker on Warneford Meadow. The movement and the call instantly attracted attention: a hard “tic, tic, tic“, a call like nothing else I had heard on the meadow in over 500 visits. Fortunately the bird perched for a few seconds on a distant oak:
A Corn Bunting! Almost as soon as I said the words, it took off and flew strongly south, over the golf course and away:
Although Corn Bunting now breed quite close to the city, records from within the ring road are exceptionally rare. There are no Oxford city records of Corn Bunting on the OOS database or on eBird. Asking around within the local birding community revealed that the last confirmed record of Corn Bunting in Oxford city was a breeding record in 1980, some 43 years ago! (Bayliss (1982) per Ben Sheldon). Ian Lewington commented that this looks like a juvenile bird, perhaps engaging post-breeding dispersal. Many thanks to Ian and Ben for their input.
My adrenaline levels had only just recovered, when two days later, on Saturday 19th August, I heard a loud clear flight call, the classic high-pitched, buzzy “tzeep“, from a migrating Tree Pipit. Looking up revealed two pipits flying south-west, not that high above trees of Warneford Meadow. I used to try to photograph flyover migrants, but in many ways a recording of the flight call is more definitive evidence of the identification. The challenge of recording Tree Pipits is that they go over quickly and don’t call constantly. As soon as I heard the first flight call, I hit record on my phone, but by the time the birds called again they were too distant for my phone to pick up the call clearly.
Nevertheless, I was stoked, the second of the August trio had fallen and this was the earliest Tree Pipit I have recorded here by two days, plus the first record of more than one bird. Overall, this is the seventh Tree Pipit record at this site over the last four years, some details of the other records are here. Now for Spotted Flycatcher to complete the set!
My youngest daughter suggested making the theme of this year’s Christmas cake the fabulous Jack Snipe that graced the Lye Valley earlier this month. After a bit of experimentation with modeling clay and spaghetti (not natural companions of the usual Christmas cake), we came up with this!
As is so often the way in the modern world, it began with a phone message. The current spell of freezing weather has been tough for birds, with some species fleeing the worst of the snow in southeast England by moving west. All standing water has now been frozen for over a week, forcing wading birds to seek out flowing water to find unfrozen mud. Such conditions can force some birds into the city waterways too. I was out early on Saturday and Sunday mornings and by Monday morning had added the third Mute Swan and the first Golden Plovers for the Lye Valley area, as they flew overhead:
I was at work on Tuesday, when Tony Gillie messaged me, with some staggering news:
It was not just that this would be a remarkable species to see within Oxford city, but also that the photo was taken on a phone. The bird must have been standing next to the observer! I contacted Isaac West and we agreed to go and see if we could find the Jack Snipe at first light the following morning, Wednesday. Suddenly Sunday felt a very long time ago.
We arrived at the top pond at the head of the valley, in bitterly cold temperatures. Immediately we could see a number of Common Snipe rising from the small pools at the top of the valley, circling around and descending again. With these birds being so mobile, it was hard to put a number on them. A conservative count was four, but there could easily have been twice this number present. For context, there is only one other Lye Valley record of Common Snipe, a single bird from January of this year.
Common Snipe in vegetation in the Lye Valley pondsCommon Snipe in the culvert at the very top of the valleyIsaac checks the top pond. It really is this small.
We took a few steps closer, another snipe rose, I raised my binoculars, saw the short bill and the long dark crescent under the eye and I called “that’s it!” as the bird landed a short way down the valley. As we got onto the boardwalk some snipe flew back towards the ponds, so we returned to the top pond. We scanned the pond edges and Isaac called “I think I’ve got it!” There, amongst the frozen vegetation was a tiny, but magnificent, Jack Snipe:
The upperparts were very dark brown, making the long strong scapular stripes glow golden-yellow in the pre-dawn light. A passing Wren gives some impression of how small these birds are:
As the rising sun began to touch the top of the bird’s head, we noticed that there was frost on the wingtips and tail of this bird, literal Jack frost:
I put the news out to the local group and we were joined by a few other people, including Pete Roby:
The first ever Lye Valley twitch. Crowd control was not necessary.
Jason turned up, was greeted by sunshine and managed to get some superb video, as the Jack Snipe de-frosted and began to feed:
Even better, this Jack Snipe was the 100th species that I have recorded in the Lye Valley area and I could not have hoped for a better species for this landmark. It also takes the site list to 103 species, the illustrated checklist of all these species can be seen here. The Lye Valley bird list now contains seven species of wader, remarkable for an area with no significant open water. The cold spell is forecast to end today, Saturday, and a visit this morning produced more waders. Not one, but two Woodcocks:
This two-week period of freezing weather may have been tough for the birds, but has produced some incredible local patch birding.
Warneford Meadow, a warm, grey mid-November morning. One minute I’m wondering about the earliest singing Song Thrush I’ve heard by about four weeks. The next, I glance up, and there pure white against the evenly grey sky, is a flying swan:
Or as I put it at the time: “OMG, there’s a f******g swan!”
Mute Swan is a rare bird up here, where we have no open water. I’ve recorded more than twice as many Tree Pipits (5), as I have Mute Swans (2), in the last four years.
In these situations, I reach straight for my camera. The detail on flying birds it can pick up will be much greater than I will see, even with binoculars. I fired off a dozen or so pictures, then moved back to binoculars to watch the swan continue north-east, over the Churchill Hospital and away over Headington and out of sight. Was it the way the head and bill profile appeared long and smooth in the camera viewfinder that made a voice in my head say “that could be a Whooper?” Or maybe it was just the time of year? Either way, as I reached down to check the pictures on the back of my camera, I knew the identity of this bird was about to be resolved. I looked at my first picture of the bird and zoomed straight in on the head. It was a Whooper Swan!
It had the head profile of a ski-ramp, long and smooth, blending seamlessly into the forehead. Some yellow was just about visible on the bill. To me, the underside of the bill and the head appear pretty flat and in line with the underside of the neck in flying Mute Swans. Whereas in Whooper Swans the head bulges lower down, beneath the line of the neck in flight. This was very apparent in the field and in the pictures, above and below.
A Whooper Swan, over Headington – a record so unexpected, that it was not even on my fantasy list of potential new bird species! This is up there with the other great Lye Valley flyover records, Bar-tailed Godwit (April 2020) and Great White Egret (March 2022). These moments make local patch birding so rewarding. What next?!
The eBird list from today is here, a Woodcock flushed from Churchill Meadow was also notable.
This morning’s visit to the parched Southfield Golf Course/Lye Valley area produced a couple of classic late-August migrants.
First up was a vocal Yellow Wagtail. Yellow Wagtails are recorded annually as fly-over migrants, but I am not aware of one ever being seen on the ground here. That all changed this morning when one flew over calling and as I watched, it dropped out of the sky to land on the golf course and begin interacting with 2 Pied Wagtails:
This bird called frequently. I recorded the flight calls using video on my phone and then downloaded them:
As I was watching the Yellow Wagtail on the ground, a loud, buzzing “tzeep” call from low overhead told me that my day had just gotten significantly better: the second Tree Pipit of the autumn was passing over. I just managed to capture a single flight call, as it headed south:
The regular appearance of Tree Pipits around Southfield Golf Course in Oxford city in late August and early September is still a puzzle. Historically, Tree Pipit is a scarce migrant and occasional rare breeding bird in Oxfordshire, although Tree Pipits were recorded regularly on this urban hilltop golf course as long ago as thirty years ago (per Steve Heath). I failed to see or hear any in 2019, but Tree Pipits have been recorded in each of the three years since, with all records between August 24th and September 8th.
Not all of these records are fly-over migrants. Last year I found a silent, feeding bird in the small meadow behind the Churchill Hospital (see photo below) and in 2020 one was heard calling at dawn from hawthorn scrub on the golf course. Dave Lowe has suggested that migrant Tree Pipits may roost in scrub and trees on the golf course and are being picked up at first light as they leave to continue their migration. Whatever the attraction of Southfield Golf Course to Tree Pipits, their annual appearance is one of the highlights of the early autumn migration period. Tzeep!
