Late Departure at Otmoor 30th October 2017

I headed for Otmoor this morning after a night of freezing temperatures, clear starlit skies and a heavy frost that crusted the grass white. The morning air was still, not a breath of wind disturbed the fallen leaves that formed a carpet of multi colours, shining in the sunlight, along our driveway.

The drive to Otmoor was, as ever, along familiar rural roads, now aflame as the trees by the roadsides turn to rich gold or deep crimson red, their leaves giving a last burst of flaring colour, like the final flame on a log fire, before they fall to earth and are extinguished.

I had not far to go at Otmoor as I was destined for the cattle pens at the end of the approach track where it joins the bridleway and just a short walk from the car park,  My reason? A late migrant Whinchat has been tarrying here for the last few days. As I walked the track Redwings sat high in hawthorns plucking at the red berries, tearing them from their stems unceremoniously and swallowing them whole, gulping the berries down swollen throats of white delicately streaked brown. The blue blush from the sloes has now gone and they are rendered dull by the frost and disdained by the birds. They hang like black marbles on the branches of the blackthorn that guard one side of the muddy approach track, 

At the cattle pens I stood quietly in the lee of the bushes waiting. Chaffinches fed in the grass and on the bare earth around the pens, flighty and edgy and regularly fleeing to the nearby bushes in alarm at something unperceived by me. Maybe the Sparrowhawk visits here.The slurred trilling of a troop of Long tailed Tits  announced their arrival along the hedgerow that was shading a water filled ditch, then, taking to the air en masse they flew across the bridleway to the far hedge, each bird silhouetted in a backdrop of clear blue air, looking like a miniscule lollipop with barrel body and preposterously long tail, propelled by weak fluttering wings.

A small, inconsequentially brown bird flew up from the ground within the pens and perched on a cold metal bar. It had its back to me, showing predominantly streaky brown plumage but with feathers outlined by pale buff or tipped with tiny white droplets, as if of rain, creating a confusion of pin stripes and spots. 

It was the Whinchat, still here and using the cattle pen fencing as a vantage point to drop down on prey in the now thawing, cattle churned mud below. It turned its head to reveal a dark brown mask and prominent cream eyebrows on its face and then turning fully to face me, the sun shone on its underparts to reveal a tawny tinged breast and paler buff underparts.

Demure, petite, with feathers fluffed against the cold it fed on the ground at length, hopping around before resuming its perching on top of the railings, waiting for another feeding opportunity. It had better hurry and stock up its fat reserves for it has a long way to go to its normal winter home, far south of the Sahara in central and southern Africa. Maybe it is too late already and it is now going to face the hazard of a winter in the northern hemisphere and an uncertain future. If it does it will be one of a very few of its kind that have ever been recorded to have done so in Britain.

Maybe it is not too late though, for records of migrant Whinchats in October, although unusual are not that uncommon, as from 1982-1996, 533 have been recorded in October, although most had left Britain by mid October. There is at least one other record for Oxfordshire of a Whinchat in late October; one on 26th October 2001 at Balscote Quarry.

November records are very rare indeed, there having been only seventeen from 1962-1999, so another two days will see this individual, if not making the record books at least joining the select few Whinchats to have been recorded in Britain in November.

In Oxfordshire there are at least two past records of individual birds that were presumably wintering; one at Otmoor on 27th November  2002 and another one on 31st December 2008 at North and South Moreton. Possibly with milder winters this behaviour might become more prevalent but at the current time it is still extremely rare.

I watched this Whinchat coming and going as the sun warmed the ground and it seemed content enough, although feeding opportunities will become less and less. It had survived last night's freezing temperatures but how much longer can it remain before hunger forces it to move or finally succumb.