Friday 19th December
This morning calm, with sunny intervals.
The floods have once more receded back towards their more normal winter levels. Most of the waders were down at the souther west corner with usual numbers of the usual birds: BLACK-TAILED GODWIT, RUFF and DUNLIN were all seen. I couldn't see the spotted redshank but as I only had my bins with me it is possible that I may have missed it. Plenty of the usual ducks, lapwings and some golden plover and a few lesser black-backed gulls in amongst the black-headed.
Further to the number of gulls at the evening roost, I was out all day yesterday but was driving back into Oxford at about 4pm when I could see large numbers of gulls coming in heading towards Port Meadow (though they could be going on to Farmoor of course). This adds weight to my theory that there are lots of late-arriving gulls roosting at the Meadow leading to much larger roost numbers than one thinks.
The floods have once more receded back towards their more normal winter levels. Most of the waders were down at the souther west corner with usual numbers of the usual birds: BLACK-TAILED GODWIT, RUFF and DUNLIN were all seen. I couldn't see the spotted redshank but as I only had my bins with me it is possible that I may have missed it. Plenty of the usual ducks, lapwings and some golden plover and a few lesser black-backed gulls in amongst the black-headed.
Further to the number of gulls at the evening roost, I was out all day yesterday but was driving back into Oxford at about 4pm when I could see large numbers of gulls coming in heading towards Port Meadow (though they could be going on to Farmoor of course). This adds weight to my theory that there are lots of late-arriving gulls roosting at the Meadow leading to much larger roost numbers than one thinks.