Today with Phil, my regular walking friend, we took a different direction from our usual route, eschewing the central causeway and commenced a clockwise walk around the southern side of Farmoor Two, the larger of the two reservoir basins. The change in the weather this week from icy cold to a more tolerable temperature meant that an early intimation of Spring was in the air and with it came a sense of optimism, banishing all thoughts of the pandemic. The sun shone and a gentle southwesterly breeze blew over the waters as Chaffinches rollicking songs and Great Tits metronomic teacher teacher calls came from the surrounding copses and hedgerows. Sleeping Great crested Grebes, heads sunk into chests, looked for all the world like scattered curling stones cast adrift on the water, whilst gatherings of Tufted Ducks were harassed by Coots as they bobbed to the surface with freshwater mussels.
The Coots have learnt that there was an easy meal if they could catch the surfacing duck unawares and before it could swallow the mussel. Often the ducks were too smart for them and would crash dive and swallow the mussel underwater. Intermittently these gatherings of ducks and coots would flee in mutual panic towards the shoreline, a chaotic charge entailing much splashing and wing flapping.The cause each time would be a large gull flying in to investigate, sensing a chance of an easy meal.
Walking onwards we found five Common Goldeneyes with their distinctive domed heads, diving with some Tufted Ducks.The drakes resplendent in black and white plumage, the females dark grey of body and dull brown of head, were dull in comparison.
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| Common Goldeneye |
Further along a drake Common Pochard swam out from the shore.They are a rare sight at Farmoor these days but one benefit of the pandemic lockdown is that all water activities on the reservoir have ceased and visiting birds are left in relative peace and often remain for a few days or even longer.The drake Pochard's combination of a conker coloured head divided from a silvery grey body by a black breast is striking.
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| Common Pochard |
Another large gathering of Tufted Ducks harboured the hybrid male Lesser Scaup x Greater Scaup. Despite its mixed genes it is a really attractive looking duck and always worthy of a few minutes contemplation.This is its third winter here and where it goes in spring and summer no one knows but I like to think that it flies to Scandinavia or Russia as, possibly, do some of the hundreds of Tufted Ducks that come to spend their winter at Farmoor.
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| The hybrid drake Lesser Scaup x Greater Scaup |
We arrived at the southwest corner of the basin where the regular flock of over a hundred Snow Geese were feeding or resting, at distance appearing as a moving tablecloth of brilliant white on the short grass they like to crop by the perimeter track but they soon flew, in a wheeling noisy flock, to land on the reservoir, then swam to the shore to stand there quietly or preen.
These Snow Geese tend to be dismissed by many birders as unworthy of serious consideration as this species normal home is North America but this flock, which has grown during the years from just a handful of presumably escaped birds to over a hundred, are now a well loved feature of the reservoir which has become almost a permanent home for them. Personally I take great pleasure in seeing them, especially in flight, when they are a spectacular sight and give some impression of how the great flocks that breed across Arctic Canada and the USA and then migrate to the southern states, must appear in their true home.
The major proportion of the flock at Farmoor are pure white birds (white morph) but a small proportion are a mix of dark bluish grey and white plumage (blue morph). Every year there are a few young birds amongst them but no one knows where they breed although it must surely be somewhere local.
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| White and Blue morph Snow Geese |
They have become accustomed to human beings and learnt that at Farmoor they will be unmolested and as such are willing to allow you to approach them closely. This brings great pleasure to the many people who, under normal circumstances would not visit the reservoir and have only the slightest interest in birds. I have often been asked by a curious passerby what they are and why they are here.The interest they create is surely a good thing as the connection with a wild and beautiful creature can bring untold spiritual benefit, something that is especially important in these turbulent and worrying times.
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| It is unusual for blue morph and white morph Snow Geese to form a pair but these two, the gander being the blue morph, definitely were a couple |
The same provenance of well being applies to another smaller flock of geese to be found at Farmoor. Barnacle Geese this time, which are often seen in close company with the Snow Geese, although both flocks maintain a discrete distance from each other.
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| Barnacle and Snow Geese flocks |
The 'Barnies' are a petite goose of black, grey and white plumage, these contrasting colours always a pleasing combination on a bird. They are noticeably smaller than the Snow Geese and positively dwarfed by the bulky Greylags. Vast numbers migrate from Greenland and Spitzbergen to spend the winter in Ireland and Scotland, but there are now resident populations, arising from birds that have escaped from wildfowl collections, to be found in many counties of England and Oxfordshire is no exception.
The Snow and Barnacle Geese along with the resident Greylags mainly feed on the sheep fields just across the River Thames which flows adjacent to the reservoir's western bank, the flocks, always noisy, flying back and fore between reservoir and fields as the mood takes them.
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| Barnacle Geese |
These geese flocks are said to be feral, a word I have grown to dislike as it imparts something dismissive and not worthy of attention. It implies these geese, not being in their true habitat, are in some way inferior, not truly wild and to be denigrated when in fact they are just as worthy of our attention and admiration as any wild goose.
The Greylags are the third goose species that resides on Farmoor and although freely breeding are also dismissed as feral. Today on getting to the southwest corner we found the Greylag flock floating idly on the water, just offshore and, as per usual, punctuating the air with their discordant loud calling.Greylags rarely manage to keep quiet for more than a few minutes at a time. Always there seems something for one of the flock to complain about.
Every time I walk around the reservoir in winter I check the Greylag flock for any different goose that may have joined them. Geese are sociable and gregarious creatures and outside of the breeding season spend all their time in flocks and very occasionally another stray goose of a different species will join them, seeking company with the next nearest thing to their own kind.
This winter there has been an influx of wild geese to Great Britain, the majority being Russian White-fronted Geese and it is not unusual for displaced white-fronts, especially if they are on their own, to join up with any similar goose species they come across. This winter the resident Greylags at Otmoor RSPB have attracted over a hundred white-fronts and other single white-fronts have been seen in Oxfordshire associating with the ubiquitous Greylag flocks but so far the large flock of Greylags at Farmoor seemed to have been passed by.
Today I routinely checked the Greylags, as I have done countless times before and at first there was nothing to excite me as I glanced through the flock. Almost to the end of the flock I found what I had been hoping for. It was a Russian White-fronted Goose, a cursory glance could so easily have missed it so similar was it in appearance to the Greylags, although when seen in comparison, as it was here, it is obviously slightly smaller.
Their plumage is similar to the Greylag's, being an overall greyish brown giving rise to the generalist term 'grey geese' which is used by many birders to describe any similar plumaged goose species such as Pink footed and Bean Goose. The main differences between Greylags and Russian White-fronts is that the white-front has a pink bill and, depending on age, a distinctive white blaze of feathers around the base of its bill extending up onto its forehead in adulthood. This individual, judging by the restricted amount of white around its bill, the lack of black barring on its belly and the presence of a black nail at its bill tip was a bird born last year and now, at this stage in its life, termed a first winter bird.
Tiresomely I had to make a long walk back to my car, as not expecting anything like this I had left my camera in the car. On returning I could hardly believe my luck as some of the Greylag flock had left the water and flown up onto the grass beside the perimeter track and one of the closest geese to me was the white-front.
The geese flew off after about ten minutes to the fields on the other side of the river but a passing helicopter disturbed them and they flew back to land once more on the reservoir's waters.
As the white-front floated unconcernedly in the reassuring company of the Greylags it was hard to imagine that this was a truly wild goose that had flown all the way from its birthplace in Arctic Russia. There are two races of white-fronted goose that visit Great Britain for the winter, the Russian White-fronted Goose Anser albifrons albifrons which was this bird at Farmoor and the Greenland White-fronted Goose Anser albifrons frontalis which breeds, as its name intimates in southwest Greenland and is the scarcer of the two and winters further north in Scotland and Ireland.
What a nice find and especially gratifying after all the times before, when mild disappointment and resignation was my lot.
That is the joy of birding a local area. For days, weeks, months even, nothing seems to change, then all of a sudden something turns up to fire your flagging enthusiasm and make life feel that much better.
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