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| Common Redshank |
Farmoor's concrete and tarmac expanses were fair baking in the midday sun. There must be some sort of summer school for yacht tuition going on during these last two weeks as the same hordes of brightly attired, wet suited kids as from a few days ago were again shouting and screaming and having a generally great time as they sat on the wall outside the yacht club, scoffing sandwiches and cold drinks in what was presumably their lunch break.
I made my way past the excited, colourful throng of possibly future Olympians to the Causeway and wandered along. A pleasantly warm and moderately strong breeze was coming off the water cooling my legs and face which already were feeling the tingle of burning from the intense sunshine. The strong breeze was causing wavelets to splash onto the concrete apron and the waters of the reservoir were an eye pleasing blue and turquoise today, reflecting the cloudless sky above. The sun was shining with such intensity it was white and shards of bright sunlight were glittering off the choppy waters with an almost painful intensity.
I looked the other way and across the smaller expanse of Farmoor One which was more sheltered from the breeze and now with the sun behind me it was not so troublesome to look over the water but there was little bird life to see, just a few Black headed Gulls, shining even whiter than usual in the brilliant intense light as they bobbed up and down on the blue water. Flocks of them were also idling on the concrete banks, like so many discarded white handkerchiefs and then flying like thrown confetti out onto the reservoir, when I got too close for their comfort.
A Common Tern floated across, its strident bickering calls at odds with the drowsy heat laden atmosphere that pervaded the reservoir. Cormorants, black and sepulchral, stood in statuesque groups on the floating pontoons, their fishing done for the time being and now free to idle away another few hours until hunger took them back to the water again.
The vigorous wavelets beating on the concrete apron of Farmoor Two were bringing upwellings of minute food items that the Mallards, drab and brown in their dull eclipse plumage were sifting through their bills, closely accompanied by flotillas of Coots ever ready to pinch a morsel from under the ducks very bill, but there was little conflict as there was plenty for all.
A wader came into view standing in the bubbled wave froth at the edge of water and concrete. A lovely tortoiseshell patterning of chestnut and black upper body plumage complemented by white underparts and a black and white head with bright orange legs. It was a male Turnstone returning from, well who knows where, possibly northern Greenland or northern Russia but wherever, it has certainly come from a very long way beyond Farmoor, that's for sure. Its long return journey may almost be over as many of its kind will winter on our coasts or those of Europe but others will travel onwards to the coasts of Africa.
I watch as it showed nervousness at my presence, running rapidly on sturdy, short orange legs along the concrete edge, then standing warily as the wavelets washed over its feet, trying to ascertain my intentions. Further along a juvenile Dunlin was more amenable to my approach, standing content on one delicate leg, relaxed in the sun, at home in its element of water and sky as I passed by. Dunlins are hardly given a glance now as they are virtually ever present at this time of year, familiar and therefore becoming forgettable and unremarkable. Most of them are juveniles but all are undergoing a scarcely credible odyssey from their distant birth place to their winter home. A true miracle that is still not fully understood or explained.
I came across another Turnstone, similarly richly coloured to the previous one and obviously another returning adult that has dropped down here to rest and feed before continuing its onward journey.
On reaching the end of the causeway I found the male Common Pochard sitting with drowsy Mallard on the concrete. He has moulted all his flight feathers, rendering him temporarily flightless but despite this remains stoically sat on the concrete, allowing me to walk up and look down on him from the pathway above. He in turn regards me with an expressionless shining red eye from his chestnut head.
Turning away I walk down the slope from the reservoir to the Thames Path that follows the winding course of the river. The heat is much greater away from the breeze blowing off the reservoir, as the path is sheltered by its lower elevation and the rich vegetation of late summer.
The heat is intense, soporific, hanging heavy and oppressive over the trees, bushes and riparian plant life. I find some shade and look at a secluded area of scattered bushes and rank herbage adjacent to the path. Pink flowered Giant Willowherb and the browning flower heads of Moon Carrot and Angelica stand as high as me, providing me with cover of sorts to observe any birds that may appear. There are precious few, as presumably like me they have sought the shade and feel similarly lethargic.
I stand by a hedgerow, that is silent, almost mysterious and now at its green foliaged zenith. The predominant leaf colour of the trees are also a variety of rich, dark greens, brooding and somnolent and a far cry from the bright green energetic growth of Spring. It is as if everything is waiting, all energy and vitality spent and preparing to turn with the earth towards the inexorable approach of autumn. The heat stultifies the birds into silence, perhaps the insistent ticking of a Robin or the quiet hooeet of a Willow Warbler or Chiffchaff will permeate the drowsy, cloying, oppressive heat of the early afternoon but nothing more
A small grey brown bird flies out and then back into a small hawthorn tree with leaves yellowed prematurely due to the lack of rain over the past months, but with branches already festooned with crimson berries that seem to have appeared un-heralded and un-noticed. The bird flies out again, its energy made remarkable by the pervading stillness and then returns to perch on a prominent bare twig. It is a Spotted Flycatcher, my second of the year and like the first, totally taking me by pleasant surprise.
I watch it sitting in the sun and my mind wanders to a similar situation observing a Spotted Flycatcher sitting in a spiky acacia bush not that much different to this hawthorn, also in intense heat but thousands of miles away in Tanzania. I drift off into a quiet reminiscence of that time years ago and this quiet corner of Farmoor becomes Tanzania and then becomes Farmoor again, my mind slipping and sliding in fanciful remembrance between the two. Meanwhile the flycatcher regularly leaves the hawthorn to fly high into the blue sky, twisting and turning to catch some invisible insect and returns downwards in swooping, looping curves to its former perch.
When it is perched it constantly moves its head, avidly following the movements of likely looking victims as they fly past. It moves its perch regularly, swooping out from various sides of the hawthorn, sometimes in low level flight and then in other towering flights, always seeming to be successful in its quest for insect prey.
There are other birds in the hawthorn too. As I watch a Robin sits and fidgets inside the tangle of spiky twigs and thorns and a juvenile Willow Warbler, yellow and bright of plumage also flits through the curling yellowing leaves. Finally that most attractive of 'our' warblers, a Lesser Whitethroat shows its grey head and silken white throat before ducking back into cover.
I stand, shaded and hidden in a recess of green gloom and watch the flycatcher. To the flycatcher it is all the same. It cares not for philosophical thoughts or romantic fantasies. It goes about its existence responding to instinct and genetics. A hot sunny patch in which to hunt numerous flying insects is what its species is genetically programmed to take advantage of and when the time is right, overnight it will instinctively move under the stars and moon to find another similar area to hunt insects. But it must be going soon, following the promise of heat, the promise of sun and the turning world, crossing the Equator to where our winter is summer and it will live its days until something within stirs it to respond, and it is time to return with the ever turning of the earth, and maybe it will remember this small patch at Farmoor and come once again. It's a fanciful dream I know, that only a human with the gifts of independent thought and imagination can indulge in but it does no harm to occasionally depart from the harsh realities and nastiness of this world.
The flycatcher flew to a nearby large weeping willow and became lost in the hanging profusion of bunched, finger thin leaves and huge bent boughs of the tree. I wandered on through dry dead grass stems, crackling under my tread. the heat of the day slowing me to a meander. I sought the cooler areas underneath overhanging trees that formed a living, shaded corridor alongside the sliding, oil smooth, opaque expanse of green river water, coiling its slow current around bright green reeds and the occasional livid purple spikes of loosestrife. I am reluctant to leave the shady bowers of the towpath and calm waters of the river to go back up to the reservoir but I know the breeze will be cool off the water there, even though in mid afternoon it will still be very hot.
Another slow walk around the northern side of Farmoor One brings the reward of a juvenile Common Redshank, its attenuated grace and posturing accentuated by its wariness. Common Sandpipers, small brown and white smudges, rendered indistinct in the heat haze, teeter and then fly with stiff, flicking wings out over the blue, breeze corrugated water, leaving the shimmering heat of the concrete apron on which they were feeding.
A Common Tern starts screaming and complaining and I look up to find a Peregrine, a barrel chested, cross bow of a bird flying across the reservoir and then circling in the blue sky. It is a juvenile, brown of plumage as opposed to the grey of an adult and revelling in its powers of flight, play stooping at indignant Black headed Gulls and then soaring up into the sky again, effortlessly, with Wytham Woods like a cloud formation of green behind it. I watch as it disappears over the hill and is gone from my sight.
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| Adult Turnstone |
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| Juvenile Dunlin |
On reaching the end of the causeway I found the male Common Pochard sitting with drowsy Mallard on the concrete. He has moulted all his flight feathers, rendering him temporarily flightless but despite this remains stoically sat on the concrete, allowing me to walk up and look down on him from the pathway above. He in turn regards me with an expressionless shining red eye from his chestnut head.
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| Drake Common Pochard |
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| The Thames Path |
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| The hawthorn favoured by the flycatcher |
A small grey brown bird flies out and then back into a small hawthorn tree with leaves yellowed prematurely due to the lack of rain over the past months, but with branches already festooned with crimson berries that seem to have appeared un-heralded and un-noticed. The bird flies out again, its energy made remarkable by the pervading stillness and then returns to perch on a prominent bare twig. It is a Spotted Flycatcher, my second of the year and like the first, totally taking me by pleasant surprise.
 |
| Spotted Flycatcher |
When it is perched it constantly moves its head, avidly following the movements of likely looking victims as they fly past. It moves its perch regularly, swooping out from various sides of the hawthorn, sometimes in low level flight and then in other towering flights, always seeming to be successful in its quest for insect prey.
There are other birds in the hawthorn too. As I watch a Robin sits and fidgets inside the tangle of spiky twigs and thorns and a juvenile Willow Warbler, yellow and bright of plumage also flits through the curling yellowing leaves. Finally that most attractive of 'our' warblers, a Lesser Whitethroat shows its grey head and silken white throat before ducking back into cover.
I stand, shaded and hidden in a recess of green gloom and watch the flycatcher. To the flycatcher it is all the same. It cares not for philosophical thoughts or romantic fantasies. It goes about its existence responding to instinct and genetics. A hot sunny patch in which to hunt numerous flying insects is what its species is genetically programmed to take advantage of and when the time is right, overnight it will instinctively move under the stars and moon to find another similar area to hunt insects. But it must be going soon, following the promise of heat, the promise of sun and the turning world, crossing the Equator to where our winter is summer and it will live its days until something within stirs it to respond, and it is time to return with the ever turning of the earth, and maybe it will remember this small patch at Farmoor and come once again. It's a fanciful dream I know, that only a human with the gifts of independent thought and imagination can indulge in but it does no harm to occasionally depart from the harsh realities and nastiness of this world.
The flycatcher flew to a nearby large weeping willow and became lost in the hanging profusion of bunched, finger thin leaves and huge bent boughs of the tree. I wandered on through dry dead grass stems, crackling under my tread. the heat of the day slowing me to a meander. I sought the cooler areas underneath overhanging trees that formed a living, shaded corridor alongside the sliding, oil smooth, opaque expanse of green river water, coiling its slow current around bright green reeds and the occasional livid purple spikes of loosestrife. I am reluctant to leave the shady bowers of the towpath and calm waters of the river to go back up to the reservoir but I know the breeze will be cool off the water there, even though in mid afternoon it will still be very hot.
Another slow walk around the northern side of Farmoor One brings the reward of a juvenile Common Redshank, its attenuated grace and posturing accentuated by its wariness. Common Sandpipers, small brown and white smudges, rendered indistinct in the heat haze, teeter and then fly with stiff, flicking wings out over the blue, breeze corrugated water, leaving the shimmering heat of the concrete apron on which they were feeding.
A Common Tern starts screaming and complaining and I look up to find a Peregrine, a barrel chested, cross bow of a bird flying across the reservoir and then circling in the blue sky. It is a juvenile, brown of plumage as opposed to the grey of an adult and revelling in its powers of flight, play stooping at indignant Black headed Gulls and then soaring up into the sky again, effortlessly, with Wytham Woods like a cloud formation of green behind it. I watch as it disappears over the hill and is gone from my sight.
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