31st Mar 2019: House Martin

The Whooper Swan in the Upper Cherwell Valley remains the main interest and has been seen daily since Wednesday. On Friday evening there was also 40 (!) Tufted Ducks on the Borrow Pit pool.

Today
A big passage of hirundines today with 300+ early morning including a House Martin and several Swallows (per JFT) also a Lapwing and a Greylag Goose.

Upper Cherwell Valley

A further c.100 Sand Martins late morning (per Jim Craike)
Whooper Swan still in field with Mutes this afternoon (per Dylan Parry-Davies)

27th Mar 2019: Whooper Swan!

John: A largely quiet day with the now routine male Little Ringed Plover again in situ around the reservoir all day.

Bumping into local regular Jim, he mentioned that someone had showed him a picture of what appeared to be a Whooper Swan, present on the Borrow Pit back on Sunday.

Now it's always worth following up reports like this and so I decided to scoot up the canal to the Borrow Pit after work, particularly as it was such a clear evening. It was a bit of a long shot but you never know!

On arrival, there were no Swans in sight, although there was a good local count of around 25 Tufted Duck. Some 15 minutes later, a group of swans flew in from the nearby fields and amazingly, amongst them was indeed an adult Whooper Swan!

A very scarce bird in this area, so a great thing to see. Let's hope it hangs on a few more days, before it heads off back to Iceland to breed.

22nd Mar 2019: Wheatear

John: This morning began with a bit more oomph to the wind and with it coming from the south / south west, I was hopeful of finding something on my walk round. I was in luck, with the year's first Wheatear, a smart male along the East side of the reservoir, loosely associating with a few Pied Wagtail. A look this evening revealed it to be still about, this time on the west side.

Other things noted today, included a single Sand Martin flying around early on and another (or same?) male Little Ringed Plover. There were also several Chiffchaff in song, completing a thoroughly spring feeling to it all!

19th Mar 2019

Sorry for the lack of posts. We've actually had six new species new to the year list since my last post, which is pretty good really considering the time of the year. I had forgotten to add Great Spotted Woodpecker and they have been really active recently, drumming and calling regularly. 

I heard my first singing Chiffchaff on the 9th and Reed Buntings have been singing from the scrub along the river and the hedge in the cattle field too. We also had  a couple of Great Black-back Gulls over one morning that week, but I forget which day!

On the evening of the 12th John had our first Little Ringed Plover of the year. We think this is the first one of the year recorded in Oxfordshire. 

Sunday morning (17th) John and I had our first five Sand Martins of the year over the reservoir. They were fairly mobile but kept coming back to the reservoir.

This morning there was at least three Chiffchaff singing and John had our first Skylark of the year over. 

Both photos courtesy and copyright of JFT

03rd Mar 2019

A pretty quiet week, but the anticipation of spring migrants is building rapidly. Interestingly, John has been seeing Chiffchaffs this week; one on Wednesday, two on Friday and three yesterday. These are the first ones seen since the one Colin saw on new years day. It would be incredibly early for these to be new migrants rather than birds that have wintered in the UK, but there have been other migrants arriving too so it wouldn't be too surprising if they are.