An Oxfordshire "Big Year" by Bike: 2023

 An Oxfordshire Cycle-powered ‘Big Year’

A few years ago, I decided that I’d try to restrict myself, wherever possible, to non-motorised birding in Oxfordshire. This wasn’t primarily motivated by thoughts of reducing my carbon footprint, but more by trying to find the best way to combine two things that I enjoy doing most in my spare time: birding and cycling. I’d found that, inevitably, time spent doing one meant less time for the other, and it seemed that the two see-sawed in terms of how much of each I was doing. Hence, and partly inspired by the exploits of people like Peter Moore (see his great blog here: http://petermooreblog.blogspot.com/), I thought I’d try to combine them. Since then, I’ve pretty much stuck to this, with very occasional exceptions (the Wantage Nighthawk a prime example!). Birding cycling is a bit of a compromise: cycling long distances with wellies on is not to be recommended, so sometimes you have to accept wet feet, and there’s always the calculation about what, other than binoculars you need. Today’s birder is ill-equipped without ‘scope and a powerful camera, at minimum, but these plus some warm clothes can easily add 7-8 kg and a good deal of drag - not great for long distances, or steep hills. Having found it rewarding and a fun way to see bits of the county in a different way than through the window of a car, as 2023 started I decided to commit to a “Big Year” within the county only by bike. At the outset, I knew that this was going to have to fit in around work, and various absences around family and work-related travel. On the other hand Oxford, where I’m based, is very well located, being within 10 km or so of two of the main sites - Farmoor and Otmoor, and having the brilliant Port Meadow right within the city. This is an account of that year. 

January

A gentle start to the year, with nothing requiring long-distance trips, so the first few days were spent visiting sites in the city between 1-4 January and amassing 73 species. Of these, the highlight was the wintering Yellow-browed Warbler at Donnington Bridge, which had first shown up on 29 December 2022, and which attracted a trickle of local birders over the first two weeks of the year. I saw it early on New Year's day and was also pleased to see the wintering Firecrest, which had survived the cold snap in mid December 2022, at my local patch of  Aston's Eyot, on the same day.

The first proper longer trip of the year was on 5 January with a 48 km round trip out to the Windrush Valley in search of a few scarcer wildfowl proving successful with 2 Ring-necked Duck and 15 Red-crested Pochard on the pits near Standlake and 5 Goldeneye (a sign of the times that this now needs a special trip to look for rather than being reliably present at Farmoor) as well as 2 Great White Egrets at Dix Pit, finishing the day on 81 species for the year. The rest of January was rather quiet, with few specific birds worth travelling for, though a Shelduck on Port Meadow on 26th was perhaps the first sign of spring, and I made a short trip out to Farmoor to see the wintering Greater Scaup; the month finished on 92 species, with plenty of gaps still.

Left: Yellow-browed Warbler, Donnington Bridge, Oxford Jan 2023; Right: Greater Scaup, Farmoor Reservoir, Jan 2023.

February

February began with little time for birding, though I did pick up my only Woodcock of the year on 7th February on a work-related visit to Wytham Woods, and enjoyed some spectacular views of the Siberian Chiffchaff wintering by Port Meadow. As the month wore on, and the first signs of spring began to be felt, I started to cast my net further afield. The 11th February saw a 69 km round trip out towards the edge of the county where a grey and cold dawn arrival was really rewarded with singing Woodlark at a traditional site. The following day I headed out to Great Tew up in the Cotswolds where a group of Hawfinch had been found. This time it was a case of another 69 km trip but for nothing more than the first Red-legged Partridges of the year (my 100th species in the county in 2023), but at least the satisfaction of a good ride in nice countryside. The next day, February 13 was a Monday and a work day, but the discovery of an Avocet (a much wanted county first for me) was the cause of a rapid mid-day visit to Port Meadow, followed by a more sedate post work visit, which revealed that the Avocet had moved on, but providing the first Oystercatcher and Med Gull of the year in its place - more signs of the start of spring passage. Frustrated by the Hawfinch dip, I made a mid-week return to Great Tew on the 16th, hoping that less disturbance would provide a better chance of seeing them; so it proved, though views were hardly classic with ‘ticking’ birds audible all the time but almost invisible hiding in holly trees. The following weekend saw the first visit of the year to Otmoor, which yielded a few new species for the year including Crane, Marsh Harrier and Lesser Redpoll. A Caspian Gull the following day was an almost expected early spring sight on Port Meadow.

Late February saw the first really accessible county rarity of the year appear with an American Wigeon found on the flood field on the NE side of Otmoor - almost certainly the same bird that had been seen late in a single evening on Port Meadow in January. A lunch-time visit on 22 February was unsuccessful - indeed the bird went missing for several days after its first appearance - but a second attempt on a lovely late winter's afternoon on 26 February eventually produced reasonable, if distant, views of the bird. February finished on 112 species: a great month with three personal county firsts and some good scarcities.

Left: Siberian Chiffchaff, Port Meadow, Oxford Feb 2023; Right: American Wigeon (with female Eurasian Wigeon), Otmoor, Feb 2023.

March

March began with a trip to look for Goshawk on a clear early spring morning. Having seen a male soaring at distance well, I headed home, stopping briefly on the way back to scan Farmoor, something I greatly regretted when a male Lesser Scaup was found late in the afternoon on 2nd March at the west end of the Causeway. The moral of the story is: always check the full length of the causeway at Farmoor! The following morning I joined an early-morning contingent of county birders hoping that this bird would have remained - the last Oxon record had been in 2007, so many were keen to see this bird. I picked it up in flight with a small group of Tufted Ducks flying over the larger of the Reservoirs, and after a short while when it went missing, it showed well in the NE corner of F2, eventually staying well into April.

The month continued with a trip to see wintering Green Sandpiper at Peep-o-Day Lane (this species is bizarrely scarce in Oxford city itself, so not one I could just count on ‘bumping into’ at Port Meadow), and then a lucky Sunday afternoon ‘on spec’ trip to Otmoor which coincided with a pair of Spoonbills that had dropped onto Big Otmoor. Obviously a mated pair, the larger, presumably male, bird could even be heard softly hooting from time to time (visible in this brilliant video from Rob Cadd: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFZv9FRU8nY) something I’ve never heard before. The rest of March was mostly interrupted by travel, but gradually accumulated a few early migrants including some spring waders on Port Meadow (Ringed & Little Ringed Plover, Dunlin, Greenshank and a splendid flock of 29 Black-tailed Godwits), ending on 125 species. The less said about the failed 67 km trip to the downs and back to not see Short-eared Owl, during which I got soaked *twice* by the same stationary band of rain the better…

Left: Lesser Scaup, Farmoor, March 2023; Right: Spoonbills, Otmoor, March 2023.

April

Always one of the most exciting months of the year, April began with an inland influx of Kittiwakes - sometimes a hard bird to catch up with in the county, especially as Grimsbury Reservoir seemed to have a magnetic attraction for them in 2023 (and is a site that would be a 94 km round trip from home). Fortunately, two birds spent much of 2 April on the huge floods on Port Meadow where the Black-tailed Godwit flock had grown to 38 and included an extraordinary-looking small, richly coloured male with a recurved bill. A few days later, a second 62 km trip to the Downs was more successful with Stone-Curlew and the bonus of two drake Garganey on the return route via Peep-o-Day Lane.

Left: Black-tailed Godwits (and 1 Golden Plover), Port Meadow 2023, including the remarkable small, richly coloured male that was in this flock. Right: Garganey, Peep-o-Day Lane, April 2023.

Family Easter holidays then took me out of the country for 10 days - a nervous period given the time of year. As it happened, I didn’t miss too much - the only Black-necked Grebe of the year which roamed the Windrush Valley in mid April being the most costly missed species. The last ten days of April brought some excellent birding with a flurry of passage species including Arctic Tern and Common Scoter at Farmoor, numerous Garganey and Little Gulls (including 16 on Port Meadow), Pied Flycatcher and Redstart at Witney Lake, singing male Wood Warblers at both Burgess Field and Wytham Woods and the splendid Spotted Crake at Otmoor from the evening of the 26th onwards. At the end of the month, Thomas Miller and I joined forces and attempted a bike-powered “Big Day” in Oxfordshire, logging 149 km on the bike between 4.30 AM and 9 PM. This was a great day’s birding with 112 species seen or heard by me personally, although only one was a year tick: Cattle Egret! A brief Purple Heron at Pit 60 on this day, seen by Thomas but not by me, was a costly miss, and one of my biggest dips of the year. The day’s exploits are recounted in full detail here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cIDfM4lsk8prvgvipOJQYDc8oxjVsxTP9hb9Ps4eHB8/edit?usp=sharing

April ended on 155 species.

Left: Little Gulls, Port Meadow, April 2023; Right: Pied Flycatcher, Witney Lake, April 2023.

May

While the pace of new additions to the year can be expected to drop off in May, any birder hopes that the quality increases, with the potential of arctic-bound waders and overshooting southern rarities jostling for attention. Again, I was away from the county or quite tied-up with work for a good chunk of this month and nervous about what I might miss. Getting a text about Black-winged Stilt on Otmoor as I drove a group of students over the county boundary on the M40, heading to Northern Ireland for a week-long field course, was a really low blow. As it turned out, again luck was with me, and I was in Oxfordshire at the right time for the most exciting period of the spring. A Bar-tailed Godwit on Port Meadow on 3rd May was a welcome get-back after missing a good county-wide passage in April, as was an Osprey found in torrential rain at the same site on 6 May, which actually stayed long enough for a local twitch. Spotted Flycatcher in Wytham Woods while teaching on 15 May was then followed later that day by the very welcome reappearance of the Black-winged Stilt at Otmoor and my first Grey Plover of the year at Port Meadow that evening. The latter turned out to be a mistake, as with limited light I gambled that Grey Plover would be harder to see again than Turnstone, of which there were 3 on the causeway at Farmoor the same evening. The Port Meadow Grey Plover stayed for a week, and Turnstone ended up being perhaps the most surprising missing species of the whole year. 

Sanderling, Tree Pipit and Turtle Dove later in May preceded an exciting two days when first, a Temminck’s Stint was found at Farmoor by Andy Last, mid evening on the 23rd. Fortunately free when the news came through, and knowing that these are sometimes short-stayers, I cycled flat out from home in East Oxford to Farmoor in 22.5 minutes (I can’t get there much faster by car), and was watching the bird within 35 minutes of the first text alert. Much of the discussion among the small crowd of birders there that evening was actually around a report of a ring-tail harrier from Otmoor which came in while we were watching the stint; reported as a possible Montagu’s, the date made it a very intriguing bird. The following day, a calm morning working at home was interrupted by news that the harrier - still not identified for sure - had reappeared over Greenaways. I dropped everything and now set a new personal speed record through Oxford and out to Otmoor (26 minutes), and was incredibly fortunate that the bird came in over Greenaways again pretty much as I arrived on site. A few ‘record shots’ shared via WhatsApp confirmed the identity as a first summer male Montagu’s Harrier - surely a species many of us hadn’t expected to see again in the county since the small breeding population disappeared a decade or more ago. The excitement was raised another notch later that day by Mick Cunningham’s remarkable ‘call of nature’ find of a singing Golden Oriole at New Yatt, but having already burnt several cards in the preceding 24 hours, this was a bird I had to hope might stay till the following day; sadly that wasn’t to be, and May ended on 165 species. 

Left: Temminck’s Stint, Farmoor, May 2023; Right: Montagu’s Harrier, Otmoor, May 2023.

June & July

As expected, the pace slackened considerably in June, with a single Crossbill ‘chipping’ over the top of Wytham Woods on 4 June, and a Quail singing at Otmoor on 22 June the only new birds that month. July began with an evening watching a family party of Little Owls within the Oxford ring-road: three lively youngsters being fed within yards of a busy pub garden, and seemed likely to continue in a similarly quiet fashion till Tom Wickens’ explosive discovery of a roosting Night Heron at Peep-o-Day lane on a sleepy Sunday 9 July. Again, a rapid ride followed - 32 minutes to cycle the 14.5 km from home (carrying full birding gear) - with excellent views enjoyed by all on arrival. The last new species of the month was Mandarin - a bird that had led me on something of a wild duck chase at multiple sites earlier in the year before eventually seeing one at Sutton Courtenay. July finished on 170 species, and with plenty of ‘autumn specials’ still to come, I was well ahead of where I expected to be.

Left: Night Heron, Peep-o-Day Lane, July 2023; Right: Mandarin Duck, Sutton Courtenay, July 2023.

August was dominated by annual family holidays in Sweden: being away it was easy enough to switch off for a month and recharge batteries, ready for a more active September. Then disaster struck. On returning from a month in Sweden at the end of August, I began to feel feverish and really quite unwell. Eventually, I ended up in hospital for a week and was diagnosed with tick-borne encephalitis, a viral disease which is transmitted by ticks, and very rare in the UK. While I recovered from the infection, the after-effects were quite severe and it wasn’t until late October that I was well enough to ride a bike any distance. This was a pity, as September in particular was a cracking month, with some first class county birds, some of which (Pallid Harrier, Curlew Sandpiper, Grey Phalarope & Whooper Swan) I was able to see by driving to see them while I was recovering, but for which cycling wasn’t remotely possible, even though they would have been eminently gettable under normal conditions. October was quieter, but there was no getting back a bunch of species that, in 2023, were really only possible for me to see in these two months. 

November

Having regained my fitness by early November, I was ready for more bike-powered birding but somewhat awaiting species to go and see. The first sudden opportunity was provided by Steve Lavington’s shock discovery of a redhead Smew on Port Meadow (the first record in the city of Oxford for 75 years) at 3.44 PM on 16 Nov. At work, with an unmissable meeting at 4.00 PM, I rode as fast as I’ve ever done to Port Meadow, had a very quick (30 second) look down Steve’s scope and high-tailed it back, arriving breathless and a little dishevelled only two minutes late for the meeting. While I hate ‘tick-and-run’ birding, sometimes there is really no alternative. The following weekend was excellent, with first a Slavonian Grebe being found mid-morning at Farmoor (a much needed county first for me), and then two Bewick’s Swans showing up on Ashgrave at Otmoor in the afternoon. Both were welcome species I’d not really expected to see this year. The last new species for the year in November was the somewhat overdue Brambling with fine views of a small group at Blenheim, taking me to 174 species. 

Left: Slavonian Grebe, Farmoor, Nov 2023; Right: Brambling, Blenheim Palace, Nov 2023.

December

December was a quieter month, with the first new species for the year being the Great Northern Diver which arrived at Farmoor late afternoon on 11 December. Having missed a very brief bird at Radley in November, I was taking no chances with this one and raced out through the dusk rush hour traffic, arriving at Farmoor a while after sunset when fortunately the bird was quite easily visible in the reflected light of the setting sun. Of course, as is often the case, it then hung around into 2024! During the rest of December Oxfordshire birders were teased by brief sightings of Waxwings popping up here and there all around the county, while neighbouring counties seemed to enjoy stationary flocks. Quite a few spins around likely looking sites in Oxford, and a 51 km tour around the back streets and supermarkets of Abingdon and Kidlington didn’t deliver any of these for me personally. The final two new species for the year took several failed attempts, with, after 3 near misses during the autumn, a ringtail Hen Harrier coming in to roost at Otmoor on 29 December finally completing the set of four harrier species at that site for me, and a Jack Snipe at Iffley Meadows (after quite a lot of searching) being the last addition to leave the year total on 177 species.

So, what did I learn this year? First, that Oxfordshire has some great birding, accessible year round, without a car. I cycled around 1800 km specifically to look for birds during the year, but partly because Oxford is centrally located and many of the best sites are within 10km of the city, I didn’t have to make many round trips longer than 30km. Of course, this might be different in a year when all the county rarities turn up on the Downs, around Banbury or down at Sonning Eye! While a quick 10k ride out to Farmoor or Otmoor is easy and hardly needs much planning, the far corners of the county are more challenging rides (my longest single ride in the county so far has been 104 km to see Dartford Warbler up at Balscote Quarry in 2022), especially when they go outside the flat Thames valley plain. I also learned that there are some great birders here, happy to share tips and information: thanks to all of you that did in 2023 and continue to do so. As with any year there are thoughts of what might have been: if all of September and October hadn’t been written off, I think another 10-15 species would have been possible this year, so perhaps I might have got somewhere near 190. Other species that I saw while out of action (from cycling) in the autumn were Black Tern, Pallid Harrier, Curlew Sand, Grey Phalarope, Whooper Swan, Rock Pipit, Short-eared Owl, Merlin and Tree Sparrow; I entirely missed Knot, Turnstone, Wood Sandpiper and Little Stint during this period. Could the mythical 200 species be seen in a single year in the county without using a car? Perhaps, with a great deal of luck and planning. Now there’s a challenge…

 

The Traditional Gnome Studios Oxon Birding Year Review

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to this blog, either through sharing your sightings or if you have been kind enough to let us use one of your photos. Thanks must also go to Pete Barker who creates such wonderful headers.