Birds
- Farmoor - Sunday Roost
4.50-6.30pm. Light not good for distinguishing gulls (sharp light plus some initial air shimmer over water). Very noticeable increase in large gull numbers, since last few visits and large gulls still arriving at 6.25. Med Gull 1 adult seen when it flew...
- Great Views Around Appleford Pit Gulls
402 Canada Geese with 2 Greylags arriving together certainly made the gulls shift to the goose free side, but this chap and his large dog circling the lake in full view had not the slightest effect on anything ! So great views of Iceland flying around...
- Farmoor Med Gulls In Late Afternoon
Arrived 16:40, so far too late for any hope of raptor watching. 1 Rockit, 2 Mipit and perhaps 20 Pied Wags plus 1 Ringed Plover in the SE of F1. Enormous gull roost this evening and gusting gale force WSW, so concentrated on F1 only. Common Gull totalled...
- Radley Lakes Sunday 13th March 6-7pm
6.20 1stW Iceland Gull on 'wader pit', along with some 5-6oo Herring and L B-backs the latter by far the greater majority (Intermedius, graelsii and thin long winged.... ?). Only c350 stayed to roost, with last arriving by 6.40. 28 B H Gulls included...
- Radley Lakes Mon 6th Dec 2010 2.45-4.45pm
Raw is the word but not as bad as heading towards Farmoor where increasing hawfrost precipitated an about turn. At Radley, all water bodies frozen excepting about western fifth of Thrupp Lake and some deep chanels under heavy willow growth and peaty ground...
Birds
Thrupp Lake, Radley 1st Jan 2011 3.00-4.40pm
Wrong side of Abingdon for Bittern (again!), but female SCAUP present throughout visit along with much reduced waterfowl numbers from recent times: c260 Coot, c30 Teal, c10 Gadwall, small numbers of Tufted, Pochard and Wigeon. NO GC Grebes, Little Grebes, Shoveler or Geese and only around 10 Mute Swans after they flew in from SW.
GLAUCOUS GULL: First winter arrived around 3.50 and stayed till at least 4.15pm.
Caspian Gull: adult bird one of the first large gulls to arrive at roost, which only totalled around 200 when leaving, with probably another 100 passing through NE- ish. No Y-l Gull but at least two colour ringed Black-backs not seen before, but in light too dark to get readable photos (worth looking out for folks?). Adult and 2 x 1stW Common Gulls and about 10 BH's to roost after some 60 flew off. All in all, an extremely different situation to the past month or so.
- Farmoor - Sunday Roost
4.50-6.30pm. Light not good for distinguishing gulls (sharp light plus some initial air shimmer over water). Very noticeable increase in large gull numbers, since last few visits and large gulls still arriving at 6.25. Med Gull 1 adult seen when it flew...
- Great Views Around Appleford Pit Gulls
402 Canada Geese with 2 Greylags arriving together certainly made the gulls shift to the goose free side, but this chap and his large dog circling the lake in full view had not the slightest effect on anything ! So great views of Iceland flying around...
- Farmoor Med Gulls In Late Afternoon
Arrived 16:40, so far too late for any hope of raptor watching. 1 Rockit, 2 Mipit and perhaps 20 Pied Wags plus 1 Ringed Plover in the SE of F1. Enormous gull roost this evening and gusting gale force WSW, so concentrated on F1 only. Common Gull totalled...
- Radley Lakes Sunday 13th March 6-7pm
6.20 1stW Iceland Gull on 'wader pit', along with some 5-6oo Herring and L B-backs the latter by far the greater majority (Intermedius, graelsii and thin long winged.... ?). Only c350 stayed to roost, with last arriving by 6.40. 28 B H Gulls included...
- Radley Lakes Mon 6th Dec 2010 2.45-4.45pm
Raw is the word but not as bad as heading towards Farmoor where increasing hawfrost precipitated an about turn. At Radley, all water bodies frozen excepting about western fifth of Thrupp Lake and some deep chanels under heavy willow growth and peaty ground...