Rediscovering the Joys of Birding

• Monday, March 24, 2008 - A local Garganey

As this weekend was Easter weekend I didn't expect to do much birding. Nevertheless I seemed to have managed a few nice sightings in between meeting various relatives and eating more than usual. On Easter Sunday we went off to my brother-in-law's to meet my VLW's (very lovely wife's)  family. On the way there I suggested to my children that they look out for jays which you can sometimes see flying over the M25 and in fact I offered some chocolate incentive of some kind. We didn't actually spot any on the motorway but when we arrived I nipped out into his back garden for 5 minutes so that my 20 month old son could stretch his legs and low and behold there was a jay skulking around in the trees. That was another of these relatively common woodland birds that I'd somehow not managed to see so far this year so I was pleased to see this one. Today (Easter Monday) I was itching to go and twitch the red-throated diver which was down at Coates Water CP near Swindon. However this would have meant that I would have been away for several hours and my VLW thought that this was a bit anti-social so in the end I settled for my local patch, namely Port Meadow with my son L in tow once more in his push chair. The flood waters were getting back to their more usual size having been at veritable lake proportions recently. There were 4 curlews loafing around in the distance and the usual redshanks and ruffs scurrying around though I couldn't see any dunlin today. There was a very large (at least 500) flock of golden plover as well. I scanned carefully through the ducks as someone had mentioned seeing a garganey a day or two ago but could only find the usual widgeon, teal, shoveler, gadwall and a single drake pintail. Having missed the Meadow Med. Gull recently I dutifully scanned the few BHG's that were present and thought that I had one. It was only when I zoomed in really closely that I saw a bit of black tucked away on the primaries. I even took a photo (I'm starting to experiment with digiscoping) and it does look like a good candidate Med Gull so it just shows how careful you have to be. This afternoon we were discussing en famille what to do. My eldest daughter K wanted to go ice skating and my younger daughter B was keen to go too so I kindly offered to take L whilst the rest of them went skating with my VLW. This gave me an opportunity to nip down to Farmoor reservoir where a Garganey had been hanging around Shrike Meadow for the last week or so and which had been seen that morning. With L immediately falling asleep for his afternoon nap I strode off with the push chair down the causeway, keeping an eye out for anything of interest on the way. I saw the long-staying water pipit and also a grey wagtail. There were loads (30,+) pied wagtails around but I couldn't see any whites. When I reached the Shrike Meadow hide there were several birders there who said that the Garganey was nowhere to be seen. Another birder who had just arrived set up his scope and almost immediately picked it out from amongst a dense patch of reeds. He let me have a look through his scope and as well as seeing a very nice drake garganey (my first) I was amazed and the magnificiation and clarity of his scope (a Swarowski). I shall have to get one if I come into a bit of money. The garganey duely obliged by coming out into the open and I even had a go at some more digiscoping. Another 3 ticks for the year list and another Life tick 109: jay 110: water pipit 111: garganey (LIFER) Here are the fruits of my feeble digi-scoping efforts:

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