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!