John C. writes: Last Thursday, as usual every fortnight, I spent the morning with the LWVP volunteers, this time tidying up the Windrush path at Standlake (which made a change from removing tree guards at Rushy Common!). It was a lovely sunny morning and Willow Warblers were singing everywhere, although there seemed to be fewer Blackcaps and Chiffchaffs than when Sue and I were there on Easter Monday.
Whilst we were having lunch in the picnic site some fresh butterflies – a Peacock, a Comma and an Orange Tip – came through and then one of the fabled Rheas came to see what we were up to. I say ‘fabled’ because we had heard that there were a couple at the adjacent fishing lake but no-one had actually ever seen one. But there he (or she) was on the other side of the fence, quite unperturbed by us, and fable had become fact. Whilst I was photographing the Rhea, a couple of Cranes flew over, heading east.
After lunch I had a quick look from outside the fence at the SSSI meadow, which was entirely yellow with cowslips, then spent most of the afternoon in the hides. It was a wellies job to get to the Langleys Lane hide, with water pouring across the track. It was windy – again – with foot-high waves on the lake and the only interest was some fresh(ish) otter spraint on the boardwalk, just outside the door; most of the birds were hidden by the waves.
It was better at the North Shore hide. A male Reed Bunting seemed to have established his territory in the reeds near the hide; plenty of Cetti’s were singing (if you can call it that) and a Curlew was burbling somewhere on the other side of the lake, but not far away. By that time the wind had dropped, the lake became quite flat and a pair of Great-Crested Grebes were waggling their necks at each other (but without weeds in their beaks). The (almost) resident, very experienced and infallible birder (MC) that I know came in and generously pointed out the pair of Ring Necked Ducks that had been present at Pit 60 for a few weeks. (I would never have identified them myself!) They are vagrants from North America and the interesting question is whether they will stay around and breed, if so it would be a UK first – time will tell.
After that, moving on to look for (of course) slime moulds, I was pleased to see a pair of Bullfinches – the first I had seen for quite a long time. Rather annoyingly for me, MC spotted a Black Necked Grebe only a few minutes after I had left – that always seems to happen!
I had hoped that the slime that Sue had found on Monday would have developed but, alas, there was no trace of it. However, I did poke around on some wet rotting logs nearby. When I removed a piece of bark from one of them I found what I think was a small Smooth Newt underneath. (At least, I think that’s what it was – please let me know if I was wrong!). After putting the bark back, I was pleasantly surprised to find several patches of slime mould sporangia (almost certainly Tricia Decipiens, which seems to be quite common) on the same log, only a few inches away from where the Newt was. I think that was a remarkable piece of serendipity. All in all, it was quite an interesting, if muddy, day.
John Cobb 14 April 2023
WEST OXFORDSHIRE FIELD CLUB 