Frozen at Farmoor 14th December 2022

Five days of sub zero temperatures culminated in a numbingly cold minus 5 

celsius today, Wednesday the 14th of December. Leaving my home the extreme cold gripped my body but the Starlings in our neighbour's tree seemed unaware of anything out of the ordinary and framed by an azure sky, perched contentedly, wheezing and gurgling away to themselves.

As is our custom on most Wednesdays Phil and myself arranged to meet at the cafe at Farmoor Reservoir. 

Arriving a little early on a morning of bright sunshine I spent fifteen minutes checking the willow and hawthorn trees that cloister the inconsequential brook that meanders past the bottom of the reservoir's car park. 

Until the cold spell arrived three or four Chiffchaffs were managing to eke out a perilous existence catching flies in whatever leaves remained  on the willows. Today there was unsurprisingly no sign of them, the only flickering movement that was not an occasional leaf spiralling to the ground was of a Goldcrest, a tiny scrap of feathered life in perpetual wing flicking motion as it hurried through the trees, picking minute prey from the undersides of the thin twigs and bent branches.It soon moved on as it was finding little to feed on.

A Redwing landed on a briar spray and pecked at the haws.It was perplexed to find that each stab at a haw resulted in the orange fruit promptly falling to the ground. It did not follow but tried another with a similar result.Its bill is not robust enough to tear pieces from the haws and the haws are too big to swallow whole so the Redwing will need to find a hawthorn or cotoneaster with their smaller more manageable berries if it is to survive

A Redwing on cotoneaster berries

Phil arrived and we repaired to the cafe, the cold air making life uncomfortable despite our layers of warm clothing.Revived by a hot drink we set off to walk around the smaller basin of the reservoir.Now exposed to a wind from the northeast that came keening over the expanse of blue water my face froze to a rictus, my cheeks numbed and eyes watering.

Farmoor Causeway

All around the hoar frost had transformed the land to a refrigerated white. Each tree, hedgerow, even blade of grass was clothed in the white glitter of ice crystals. The sun was at times almost blinding as it sat low in the sky and bore no warmth whatsoever.

I was keen to see if the wintering Common Sandpiper was still with us or whether it had moved on or even succumbed to the cold.For the last three years a Common Sandpiper, a species that usually migrates to southern Africa has taken a huge risk and spent each winter on the two filter beds that lie below the northern side of the reservoir. I have no idea if it is the same individual each year but a wintering sandpiper is very uncommon so it may well be.

We checked the filter beds but the margins of mud where the sandpiper had been finding sustenance were frozen to the solidity of concrete.Nothing could find food there. It had gone and whether it was dead or alive we knew not.

Further along the perimeter path another sign of the exceptional cold manifested itself on the wall of the reservoir. Two small birds, not the usual wagtails, flew from us before one pitched to feed on the concrete shelving sloping down to the water's edge. The other flew further along to perch on the wall above the shelving. The former was a Meadow Pipit. The other was a female European Stonechat which with admirable persistence flew from us in successive short flights along the top of the wall, each time to perch and look down to the shelving below.Watching, it would drop down to seize an invertebrate before returning to the wall. 

One or two stonechats  normally winter here but are usually found inhabiting the wasteland of dead willow herb and rushes that are nearby between  the reservoir and the river. Obviously frozen out, the desperate bird had resorted to the reservoir wall as a lookout from which  to drop onto anything it could find to eat on the shelving below.

European Stonechat -female

We carried on around the perimeter and dropped down the frost rimed reservoir bank to the Thames Path that runs by the river. Here, sheltered from the wind the cold was less intrusive. A Robin perched close to us, unusually close as if expecting us to disturb some prey it could seize. I shuffled through some dead leaves to expose the ground below and the Robin cocked its head and immediately flew to seize minute prey I had uncovered but was invisible to my eyes.

It followed us for a short way, hopping on the ground or perching fluffed up, low in bare branches, looking at us expectantly with button like black eyes. If the freeze persists maybe I will bring it some mealworms on Friday. 

Leaving the Robin we entered the nearby Pinkhill Hide just as the weather took a turn for the worse and clouds obliterated the sun. We found that contractors were digging out the encroaching sedge and reeds that have threatened to overwhelm Thames Water's Pinkhill Reserve.This work has been long overdue and was a welcome sight, the digger opening out the reserve by scooping out sedge and reeds to create channels of water, leaving just a few small islands of sedge and reed,.

The digger's  tracks had churned the mud into a wet and glutinous mire and various birds were quick to take advantage of the consequent exposure of invertebrate life. Up to four Robins had forgone their customary belligerence and were concentrating on findng enough food to ensure their survival for another day. Pied Wagtails too were joining in this opportunity but best of all, a small wader flew low on flickering wings from the encroaching digger. It was a Common Sandpiper. Surely it was the wintering individual from the filter beds.

In an upperbody plumage not too dissimilar in tone to the grey mud over which it wandered back and fore, it showed great interest in a temporary bank of earth and roots, newly formed by the excavations of the digger. Peering into the depths of the disturbed earth it extracted exposed worms and grubs from the bank which were rapidly swallowed. For a brief thirty seconds it stood motionless. its crop bulging with the worms it had prised from the earth but hunger soon prevailed and it was back once more to a remorseless search for food.

At other times it would wander around the digger even disappearing below it. It was obviously very hungry and fed almost constantly, any natural fear suspended in the  primary objective of remaining alive.

The digger, an unlikely lifesaver as far as the sandpiper was concerned, will be here tomorrow too, so the sandpiper will be able to find more food and on Saturday the temperature is predicted to rise above freezing for the first time in a week. Will it be in time enough to save the sandpiper? 

Only time will tell but for now we rejoiced that it was alive.