Field Club walks are usually not very challenging, but this one was different: it was variously described as an obstacle course or even an adventure. Despite the challenges, we found what we had gone to look for and people enjoyed the adventure, or at least seemed to.
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.
Sue Leigh writes:
Sherborne woods, early February: The nest I am looking at is round, mainly made of moss with a small entrance hole. It is about four feet from the ground in what looks like a fairly open site but in spring and summer would be under a canopy of leaves and surrounded by more vegetation. It was made by a wren.
Club visit to Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, Slimbridge, Sunday 8 January 2023.
As I am writing this the weather is wet and claggy, so we were lucky on Sunday when six of us arrived at Slimbridge for 11am and it was bright and clear. Starting at the Rushy hide we worked our way down to the Holden Tower before lunch.
It was snowing in Witney; the mercury had fallen to minus four the previous evening; there were warnings of freezing fog, and England were out of the World Cup. On top of that there was a report that the lake was almost completely frozen. It didn’t look good for our birding visit to Pit 60.
David Rolfe writes:
During the spring of this year, I carried out a breeding bird survey for the Wychwood Forest Trust at Gibbets Close Farm. The site comprises approximately 50 acres of permanent grassland, that has been left to go wild, and a small farmyard. Main field boundaries comprise untrimmed hedgerows, with many mature oak and ash trees. There are also extensive rows of mainly dead elm trees on higher ground.
Elaine S. writes:
The swifts in my road in North Oxford seem to have gone.
WEST OXFORDSHIRE FIELD CLUB