7th Jan 2024: A bit wet!

Dawn broke on New Year's Day with the patch (and a lot of other places) flooded. It wasn't too high to get in with wellington boots and a bit of care but some of the pathways around the wood (near the river especially) were too deep to walk along, so I accessed the Upper Cherwell Valley from the Gateway/M&S car park. A good number of birds seen for the first day, including Siskins, a Chiffchaff, a Stonechat, a drake Pintail, 2 Wigeon and a Snipe. A flock of birds passed over really high going south that JFT and I thought were most likely Golden Plover but we couldn't say for definite.

Wednesday morning the flooding was even worse and access to the reservoir not possible in the morning so I went up the valley but Ian managed a walk round in the afternoon. I added 5 Teal and 3 Lesser Redpoll to the year list and Ian had a drake Goosander on the Reservoir, which Adrian T also saw on Thursday.

This morning Clive and I were out and had a really good look around the patch, as part of the B.O.S. Short Day Count of SP44. We had a couple of new birds for the year list with a single Great Black-backed Gull over twice (possibly two birds) and a Lapwing in one of the fields that was still holding some flood water. Other notable sightings on patch were 5 Great Crested Grebes on the reservoir, 2 Gadwall on the Borrow Pit pool, 3 Wigeon, c.40 Snipe in one wet field and 2 Stonechat. Out of patch a Peregrine in town and a Goosander at Wroxton were good birds to get but there was not a lot else really.

Yesterday afternoon one of my friends took this overhead shot as the plane he was on passed over on the approach to Heathrow. This would have been at around 5500 m and a lot higher than most migratory birds would be flying over, but an interesting perspective of the patch and the surrounding area.

Courtesy and copyright of Allan Jones