Introduction & Background
A blog to record sightings on and around Port Meadow in Oxford. Feel free to make comments with additional sightings (click on the comments link at the top of each entry) or alternatively e-mail them to:
portmeadowbirding "at" googlemail.com (replace the "at" with @). Also any Port Meadow bird photos are much appreciated and will be fully accredited.
Where appropriate in the blog, sighting sources are referenced (OOS = www.oos.org.uk, BG = www.birdguides.com, OXB = Oxon Birds yahoo news group WoM = word of mouth/private e-mail).
All photo's are copyright Adam Hartley (use PortMeadowBirding e-mail address), Nic Hallam or Steve Bell as indicated in the blog text. Apologies for the poor quality of the Adam Hartley one's: they are mostly digiscoped record shots only.
The Meadow floods on a rainy May afternoon. © Adam Hartley
Overview
The meadow usually floods in winter and attracts many over-wintering ducks, gulls and waders. Typical ducks include widgeon, teal, shoveler, gadwall, pintail. Typical waders include lapwing, golden plover, ruff, redshank, dunlin, snipe but lots of passage waders can turn up en route. As well as the usual gulls there are occasional iceland, glaucous and mediterranean gulls. In spring there is always the possibility of a garganey turning up.
There is a detailed write-up here from the OOS web-site including site access instructions.
Autumn/Winter 2007
Autumn/Winter 2007 saw: little egrets, two pectoral sandpipers, a little stint, a curlew sandpiper, a grey phalarope, a long-staying juvenile spotted redshank, passing black and bar-tailed godwits, a first winter little gull. Also, supposedly, the buff-bellied pipit from Farmoor stopped in briefly and a lapland bunting was briefly seen to fly over. A flock of whooper swans spent a day at the Wolvercote end of the Meadow.
2008 Sightings
Interesting sightings for 2008 so far include:
Waders: ruff, dunlin, redshank, greenshank, sanderling, little stint, temminck's stint, oystercatcher, curlew, whimbrel, lapwing, golden plover, grey plover, ringed plover, little ringed plover, common sandpiper, wood sandpiper, black-tailed godwit
Ducks/geese: garganey, ruddy shelduck, barnacle goose
Gulls/Terns mediterranean, iceland, little gull, arctic tern, common tern
Misc others: yellow wagtail, blue-headed wagtail, white wagtail, common redstart, wheatear
Birds of prey: peregrine, barn owl, sparrowhawk, red kite
Burgess Field warblers: willow warbler, chiffchaff, blackcap, garden warbler, whitethroat, sedge warbler, grasshopper warbler.
Adam Hartley
portmeadowbirding "at" googlemail.com (replace the "at" with @). Also any Port Meadow bird photos are much appreciated and will be fully accredited.
Where appropriate in the blog, sighting sources are referenced (OOS = www.oos.org.uk, BG = www.birdguides.com, OXB = Oxon Birds yahoo news group WoM = word of mouth/private e-mail).
All photo's are copyright Adam Hartley (use PortMeadowBirding e-mail address), Nic Hallam or Steve Bell as indicated in the blog text. Apologies for the poor quality of the Adam Hartley one's: they are mostly digiscoped record shots only.
The Meadow floods on a rainy May afternoon. © Adam Hartley
Overview
The meadow usually floods in winter and attracts many over-wintering ducks, gulls and waders. Typical ducks include widgeon, teal, shoveler, gadwall, pintail. Typical waders include lapwing, golden plover, ruff, redshank, dunlin, snipe but lots of passage waders can turn up en route. As well as the usual gulls there are occasional iceland, glaucous and mediterranean gulls. In spring there is always the possibility of a garganey turning up.
There is a detailed write-up here from the OOS web-site including site access instructions.
Autumn/Winter 2007
Autumn/Winter 2007 saw: little egrets, two pectoral sandpipers, a little stint, a curlew sandpiper, a grey phalarope, a long-staying juvenile spotted redshank, passing black and bar-tailed godwits, a first winter little gull. Also, supposedly, the buff-bellied pipit from Farmoor stopped in briefly and a lapland bunting was briefly seen to fly over. A flock of whooper swans spent a day at the Wolvercote end of the Meadow.
2008 Sightings
Interesting sightings for 2008 so far include:
Waders: ruff, dunlin, redshank, greenshank, sanderling, little stint, temminck's stint, oystercatcher, curlew, whimbrel, lapwing, golden plover, grey plover, ringed plover, little ringed plover, common sandpiper, wood sandpiper, black-tailed godwit
Ducks/geese: garganey, ruddy shelduck, barnacle goose
Gulls/Terns mediterranean, iceland, little gull, arctic tern, common tern
Misc others: yellow wagtail, blue-headed wagtail, white wagtail, common redstart, wheatear
Birds of prey: peregrine, barn owl, sparrowhawk, red kite
Burgess Field warblers: willow warbler, chiffchaff, blackcap, garden warbler, whitethroat, sedge warbler, grasshopper warbler.
Adam Hartley