Thursday, May 22, 2008 - Farmoor Great White Egret
Yesterday I arranged to be given a tour of nearby Radley Gravel Pits by a fellow local birder. This was his local patch and it was an opportunity to get some inside knowledge of an interesting and unusual location as well as the opportunity to pick the brains of a very experienced birder. In order to be able to leave work early I worked extra hard to get everything finished and therefore neglected my frequent checking of the internet for possible bird sightings. When we met up the first thing he asked was had I been down to Farmoor as there had been a great white egret (only seen twice before in Oxon) there all afternoon. As I'd not been checking on updates of course I had no idea about this. He said that he'd quite understand if I wanted to leave and go there instead but I felt that as we were already there then it would be a shame not to look round so we duly started on the tour.
Radley GP's are former gravel pits which have now partially been filled in with ash. This gives many of the pools a very strange almost lunar look to them which is somewhat eerie. There's one large lake which has not been filled in (yet) and two minor ones, which have been partially filled in and various smaller satellite pits which have been filled in to varying degrees. There are some reed beds and scrub in the surrounding area and the river Thames is nearby so an interesting mix of habitats. There are plenty of warblers around: reed, sedge, black cap, garden, whitethroat, willow and chiffy and even cetti's (which we heard singing whilst there). There is one pit which has relatively extensive mud (or ash) banks on which waders can often be found and we spent some time looking there though we only found a couple of redshank and a few ringed and little ringed plovers. In recent weeks there have been some more interesting passage waders discovered there including greenshank and wood sandpiper and past rarities include white-rumped sandpiper and wryneck. We were nearing the end of the tour when my companion's phone went off. It was another birder saying that the egret was still there so we decided to head on over there to see if we could see it.
We duly arrived only to be told that it had recently flow away from Shrike Meadow where it had spent most of the day, over the river Thames and had landed in a field behind a hedge out of sight. We debated waiting to see if it would return and I asked whether it was possible to view the field behind the hedge if we were to walk along the bank a bit. We decided to walk along a bit to see if we could see anything when one of my companions suddenly stopped: he'd heard the faintest of calls which to him sounded like a possible Willow Tit (now sadly a great rarity in Oxon). Some time was spent crawling around in the undergrowth to see if this could be tracked down but to no avail. I was most impressed that this relatively quiet and seemingly innocuous call had been picked up on so sharply. Yet another lesson on how important it is to know all those calls (something I am still working on).
At this point we discussed what to do. My two companions, being seasoned twitchers had both already seen a great white egret before and indeed had seen the bird there today already so it was left up to me as I'd not yet seen one at all. I was quite keen to give it a go though to be honest I thought that it was unlikely that we'd be able to find it. Still it was a nice evening for a walk and I had deliberately not given my VLW (very lovely wife) a time when I would be back so I said that I'd like to have a crack at finding it. We got down to Pinkhill lock when we stopped again. There was one of the strangest noises that I'd ever heard which I was told sounded not unlike a Scop's owl. One of the birders even played the call of a scop's from his mobile and it did sound remarkably similar. After listening for a while it was decided that it wasn't a scop's though it was certainly a most strange sound.
We pressed on with our walk and after half an hours walk in total finally found ourselves behind the hedge where it was thought the bird was. The field had some kind of cereal crop in it which didn't look too promising but there was a water-filled ditch along one side which we carefully scanned but to no avail. We were wondering what to do next when the bird flew up from behind the hedge at the end of the field, skimmed low over the hedge and landed on the bare branch of a distant tree. It seemed quite happy there and we got good views of it perched there. I was amazed and delighted that we'd managed to see the bird as it had seemed like such a long shot but it just goes to show. We made our way back to Farmoor, I at least, most pleased with the outcome of our trip. I was also most grateful to my two companions for taking the time and trouble to go this excursion for my sake.
It was most educational to spend some time with two such seasoned birders, seeing how seemingly indifferent to the surrounding bird calls they were until they heard something interesting when they'd suddenly spring into action. A far cry from my present efforts to master all the bird calls. I do feel that I am making good progress but seeing them in action I realise that there is a long way to go yet. It was also interesting hearing their talk about the various rarities in the country and the various twitches that they'd been on. They would think nothing of travelling hundreds of miles to see a rate bird. I'm certainly not at that stage though this is largely because I've seen relatively little as yet and am therefore easily satisfied with the birds that I can find comparatively easily.
Anyway, I was really lucky to manage to see the egret as it wasn't seen again the next day. In fact we would have almost certainly have been the last people to see it that day. Another year and life tick for me.
171: Great White Egret (LIFER).
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About Me
I used to be a birder in my youth but rather lost interest in my teens as other things became more interesting. However recently I've rediscovered this interest and would like to share my sightings and thoughts in this blog.
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