Night Rafting on Arran - 10th May 2026

As is our custom each Spring, we recently spent two weeks on our favourite Isle of Arran in our favourite house that lies right on a rocky seashore that is but a few metres below a wall that guards the house from the sea.

Before us is nothing but the wide seascape of Kilbrannan Sound and across the sea looms the impressive rolling hills and distant mountains of the Kintyre Peninsula and the Mull of Kintyre. 

Below on the rocky beach Common Gulls are nesting in a loose colony while gleaming white Gannets plunge spectacularly from on high into the sea beyond. Amongst the gulls a pair of Ringed Plovers have chosen to nest. 

I hold little hope for their nest being successful as for much of the time the parent birds are not incubating the eggs but trying to distract the nearby gulls from discovering the nest and devouring its precious eggs. Even if the young hatch they will inevitably be discovered and consumed by the gulls but for now the nest somehow survives and the plovers continue instinctively to indulge in frantic distraction displays, feigning broken wings and severe injury. The gulls are indifferent and ignore them even when they are only feet away.

The Ringed Plover's distraction display, pretending to be injured

April and May are good months for watching the local and not so local wildlife on Arran. A steady passage of migrant Whimbrels arrive on its shores to rest and feed before moving further northwards to their breeding areas which can be anywhere from Shetland and Orkney to Iceland, The Faeroes Scandinavia and north western Russia. Some even fly non stop from their wintering areas in West Africa to Iceland covering a distance of between 3900-5000km in six days but others make a stop in north western Europe, possibly to replenish their energy reserves after a long flight from Africa and put them in prime condition for the breeding season ahead.

Whimbrels

Not a day passed that I did not see small groups of Whimbrel feeding or resting on the rocky shore by the house. I rather like Whimbrels, a smaller more classy cousin of our resident Curlew with the added romance of coming from afar, West Africa to be precise. By the time they reach Arran they have accomplished the major and most dangerous part of their long journey across the Bay of Biscay and up the Irish Sea to stop on this beautiful romantic island for a brief spell of recuperation before completing the last part of their epic journey.

One particular Whimbrel caught on the south coast of Arran on the 30th April 2017 and fitted with a yellow leg flag bearing the number A2 has faithfully returned for the last nine years to the same Arran shore in virtually the same week as when it was originally trapped. Even more remarkable, on the 24th November 2022 it was seen wintering on the coast at Bank d'Arguin in Mauritania, West  Africa. 

Their distinctive, seven note tittering call alerts you to their presence as maybe a dog walker on the nearby beach disturbs their rest and sometimes a bird will indulge in a wild and wonderful sequence of notes, an evocative  courting song as if it cannot contain itself until it arrives on its breeding haunts.

But most of all I look forward to seeing a spectacular bird that never fails to cause me to look in supreme admiration at its beauty and magnificent presence. I speak of the Great Northern Diver. The sea off Arran is a favoured wintering habitat from September to May for this impressive bird so I know I am not going to be disappointed and to add to my sense of anticipation I know that most will be in full summer plumage.

I am familiar with them in winter around our coasts and even on our local inland reservoir in Oxfordshire but always in dull grey non breeding plumage.Not so on Arran where they are transformed to a wonder of black and white chequering with a black and white striped vicar's collar around their neck and eyes the colour of rubies, glistening in  huge head and bill of matching black. 

Being so close to the sea we can sit by the wall and watch them as they come in close to the shore hunting butterfish, flatfish and crustaceans in the shallows and where they do not even have to dive but rather snorkel with head either submerged or just above the water to seize their prey.

The bay that our house looks out onto is called Drumadoon and is a particularly favoured haunt of these divers and where I have never failed to see less than half a dozen every morning, each bird cruising over the sea in stately fashion and always alone

This year we were blessed with glorious weather and the sea, especially in the evening, would become almost glass like with no wind and sunsets to die for.The divers can become quite vocal in these conditions and at this  time of day as the world here seems to fall into quiescence and reflection, their haunting other worldly cries come from far out in the Sound, touching some primaeval nerve within me that brings a confusing onset of emotion, thrilling but also unsettling.

In  the late evening, in such conditions the divers can congregate into loose groups, a behaviour that has only relatively been discovered and termed 'night rafting' and is likely to be for protection and energy conservation.Although they feed alone during the day, the divers gather in small groups that join others to eventually form larger groups that spend the night in an area well offshore. This behaviour is recognised as being crucial for over 20% of the Great Northern population that spend the winter around Britain's northwestern coasts and originate from their breeding areas in Greenland and Iceland. 

I was fortunate to observe this behaviour on the evening of the 30th of April.

As the light faded between eight and nine o; clock and the sun set over Kintyre I watched a group of eight Great Northerns swim past in the middle of the Kilbrannan Sound, heading out to the more open deeper sea. A short while later another group of eleven were slowly swimming in the same direction and out to sea to join other small parties of fellow divers. They do not feed but swim slowly with obvious purpose to a destination known only to them. These congregations are quite distinctive on the smooth water and I watched them until they merged into the fading distance and I could see them no more 

In total I counted thirty seven Great Northern Divers.

Turning away to the west I watched the departing sun's yellow orb sink behind Kintyre, the sky flame orange that was almost imperceptibly turning to a gentle rose pink above the island's topography, now become indistinct and magical in the dusk. 

The composer Benjamin Britten and poet W. H. Auden combined to put one of Auden's poems to music and within which is contained a memorable but melancholy line from the poem which goes

Love's all over the mountains where the beautiful go to die

And so it felt on Arran at that moment. 

A Sedge on the Edge - April 2026

Six years ago I wrote of a very showy Sedge Warbler see here  making its summer home in a neglected area of scrub at the western end of my local Farmoor Reservoir and almost  inevitably the bird was christened Reg the Sedge. Sadly he sang his heart out to no avail and to my knowledge remained unmated and unfulfilled for the entire summer.

This year as always, I revisited this half forgotten area known as Pinkhill, an idyllic corner by the sweeping curve of the Isis, where the nearby lock keeper's house guards the lock and the long boats moored alongside banks of comfrey and flag iris, in a quiet backwater below towering green billows of fully leaved horse chestnut trees.

l rarely encounter much human activity apart from the occasional dog walker and that is why I like it here, abandoned, neglected, left to nature and as a consequence immensely attractive to birdlife, especially at this time of year. Threatened by ' recreational improvement' with the creation of ponds and even a pond for dogs to especially jump into, a complete nonsense, as if the dogs and their owners would confine themselves to one specific pond, the folly of this exercise was pointed out to Thames Water who own the land and thankfully the plan was abandoned.

I fail to comprehend this desire, however well meaning for tidying up areas such as Pinkhill. It is as if any such neglected area cannot be left to fend for itself. Leave it be, there is already enough closely mown grass on  the nearby reservoir banks.  

The Jesuit priest and Oxford Scholar, Gerald Manley Hopkins wrote a poem about a burn in Scotland called Inversnaid,  the final two lines being: - O let them be left. wildness and wet: Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet. Exactly!

It is always exciting to anticipate the arrival of the first migrant warblers of Spring and from early March onwards I visit Pinkhill almost daily to seek sight or sound of any new arrivals. Common Chiffchaffs and Blackcaps are always in the vanguard, closely followed by the Willow Warbler and its wistful song but it is the arrival of Sedge Warblers and Common Whitethroats that are the most keenly anticipated, at least for me anyways.

For some days I saw and heard nothing until, in the last week of March on an unexceptional Wednesday of persistent cold wind but pleasant sunshine I heard the unmistakeable scratchy jumble of notes that is the song of a Sedge Warbler. It sang quietly, not at full volume, hidden deep within a tangle of hawthorn and rampant bramble. Although completely invisible it was literally feet from me as I listened enthralled at the first Sedge Warbler to arrive this year at Farmoor. 

The day after it had moved on but now I knew it would not be long before many more would follow The days passed and in the second week of April the wind dropped overnight and the next morning Pinkhill was inundated with the songs of Sedge Warblers.The previously silent acres of scrub were transformed by a cacophony of sound as Sedge Warblers sang from what felt like every bush and ditch.

They had arrived! 

I stood in the early morning sunshine and absorbed this discordant chorus of natural sound. I tried to imagine the night before, as the warblers tiny forms dropped from the night sky into the still dark and waiting habitat that would be their summer home and at first light proclaim possession of a small patch of Oxfordshire, triumphant and rejoicing that they had successfully made the long journey from Africa and proclaiming their presence to one and all. 

I try to discern the mimickery included in their complex song, the notes of which are invariably delivered at high speed.They always incorporate other bird calls to supplement their own song and amid the jumble of notes the calls of other species from both their summer and winter homes are faithfully reproduced. Some of these calls are easily identified. For instance the alarm call of a Swallow is a favourite but there are many other calls that vary from individual to individual Sedge Warbler and often include unfamiliar sounds from species only found in the warbler's winter home in Africa.

Look closely and you will see Sedge Warblers are an attractive little bird of varying shades of rufous and buff with prominent long white eyebrows, a black striped head and an upperbody of light brown streaked with darker lines whilst its underparts are clear and paler, almost white. Its entire appearance replicating the stalks, stems and dead reeds it finds so desirable to inhabit.

In their ardour they  sing enthusiastically from anywhere. Low in riparian diches, often in bushes too and also will climb up the dead stalks of reeds or umbellifers to boldly give voice in the open, innate caution temporarily abandoned. Their white throat swells  and their bill opens wide to display a fiery orange interior as they pour forth their song.

Occasionally in extremis they hurl themselves skywards, performing an aerial jig, seemingly unable to control the surge of energy that grips their tiny bodies, throwing themselves around in the sky and singing in an  exuberant brief abandon before, on spread wings, returning to earth.

It does not last long this initial frenzy of activity and song, energised by competing with fellow Sedge Warblers. However for the first two or three weeks of their arrival a torrent of song greets me each early morning but once they have found a mate they fall silent and become secretive and it will all be over until next year.

What's not to like about a Bluethroat? - 18th April 2026

On April the 8th a male Bluethroat was found along a narrow path called the Poole Harbour Trail at Swineham in Wareham Town Country Park, Dorset. The path, which really is very narrow passes  between a former gravel pit now a lake and the River Frome. 

The Bluethroat appeared not to have read the script in that it was ridiculously confiding and consequently many were the subsequent sensational photos of it that flooded onto social media after its discovery.

Bluethroats come in two forms, red spotted and white spotted which are classed as sub species.The bird at Swineham, in full breeding plumage, was obviously a male of the red spotted form but there is some interesting background to this.

A male Bluethroat was discovered in exactly the same spot on March 17th but was moulting from its dull first winter plumage into breeding plumage and photos taken at the time showed it definitely had a red spot appearing on its breast. Could the two birds be one and the same and the bird currently present is the individual that was seen in March, having completed its transition from first winter plumage to breeding plumage.That it is in the same spot as the  bird seen in March seems a remarkable coincidence. The chance of two vagrant bluethroats, both of the rarer red spotted form and being found in exactly the same location less than a month apart seems unlikely. 

It had also been assumed until the photos appeared that the bird in March was of the white spotted form as they migrate earlier than the red spotted form. The migrations of the two forms are very different.The red spotted breeds in the sub  arctic and winters in India and southeast Asia whereas the white spotted winters in southern Europe and Africa and breeds in milder areas of Europe. Logically one would think the white spotted form would be the more likely to occur in Britain but as often is the case with birds, the bluethroat at Swineham confounded expectations

Interestingly a male White Spotted Bluethroat returned for five years running (2021-2025) to Slimbridge WWT to set up a territory and sing but never found a mate.

I resolved to go and see the Swineham bluethroat, however a virus prevented any immediate departure but by Saturday I was feeling much better. I waited at home for news of the bluethroat still being present on Saturday morning and confirmatiom duly appeared on Birdguides at just after 7am.and so it was that I resolved to undertake the two and a half hour car journey to Swineham which lies just to the east of Wareham, near Poole Harbour in the fair county of Dorset.  

I arrived at Wareham at just after 10am and following the satnav found myself parking the car with some difficulty in Bestwall Road. a narrow residential road with cars nose to tail along one side and precious little space in which to manouevre.There was no shortage of birders to ask where to go, which  was to walk to the end of the road and then continue on what appeared to be a private road which eventually led to a gate giving access to an unsurfaced track that wound its way towards the marshes.and yet another gate through which I was required to take the left most path of four, going by the name of The Poole Harbour Trail. 

On the mile walk out to the bluethroat I met a number of returning birders who told me it was showing really well but the big problem was the extreme narrowness of the path and the number of birders crammed on it trying to get a sight of the bluethroat. My anxiety levels rose accordingly but there was little I could do about this but continue onwards and hope that I could find a space in the crowd through which to view the bird. Frankly it was inevitable that a rare and showy bird on a sunny Saturday would be bound to attract a crowd and I had known this from the outset so had no reason to complain.

Nearing the site I met two returning Welsh birders who told me the bluethroat had been showing beautifully not more than twenty feet in front of them. Excitement now joined anxiety in a mix of emotions as I increased my pace and hurried onwards.

There was no mistaking the spot, as rounding a bend  I came to a mass of bodies standing almost in single file on the path looking further along it. 

The restricted viewing conditions are all too evident

There was currently no sign of the bird so I gently managed to insinuate myself into the scrum and more by luck than judgement and the kindness of fellow birders found a position where I was able to see clearly down the path.

Both sides of the path were guarded by wind stunted, lichen encrusted hawthorns and thick stands of dead reeds. Overhead the sun shone from a sky that was like a blue sea with islands of fluffy white clouds, the sun creating dappled shadows along the path's length.

The narrow winding  path as seen from my crouched position on the narrow
bank to the left and that acted as a stage for the Bluethroat to perform on
from one end to the other

A wait of around twenty minutes ensued and then to hushed excitement and, it has to be said personal relief, the bluethroat hopped down onto the grass beside the path but at the far end. As is the custom these days dried mealworms had been liberally scattered all along the path and in the grass and it was feeding on these.

Someone beside me stage whispered 

We should be at the other end of the path

However the bird appeared to be slowly and purposefully making its way towards us along the path so we waited  to see what would happen.

Gradually it moved closer and ever closer and a frisson of pleasure and delight gripped me as I focused on the superb, radiant blue and orange red colouring emblazoned across its front. A shock of bright colours on  otherwise pale buff underparts. The blue feathers were luminescent in the sun, appearing almost metallic and even in the shaded areas of the path retained a distinct glow.

It continued to hop towards us on long legs with occasional diversions into the grass at the edge of the path. 

With my camera in overdrive I took image after image until it stopped no more than five metres from us. A short hesitation, a slow raising of its tail and then it flew up into the adjacent hawthorn to perch on a twig, fully in the open. 

Its actions and overall behaviour were highly reminiscent of a Robin and indeed a Robin was present for comparison.So often Robins chase off rarities such as this, creating a deal of angst amongst birder folk such as myself so I was gratified to note that the bluethroat was having none of it and would chase the Robin off aggressively and on a couple of occasions threaten it by extending its head and body almost vertically, the better to show off its blue and red colours, just like male Robins do to each other in territorial display.

Time went un noticed in a euphoria of excitement and anticipation as the bluethroat dropped onto the path about every fifteen minutes to feed. 

Exclamations from random voices behind me such as: 

There it is! or Its back! 

signified its return to the path. We gorged ourselves on sensational view after sensational view, accompanied by gasps of admiration from newcomers and sighs of fulfillment from everyone, once it flew out of sight,.

At one point it was no more than a few feet from us, we being crouched and contorted on the bank by the path so others behind us could see and then it flew up into the centre of the hawthorn and commenced singing, a quiet warbling subsong that persisted for some minutes, its body silhouetted deep in the bush amongst the sunlit branches and twigs before it once more re emerged and hopped along the path, still singing.

In between its appearances the explosive exclamations of Cetti's Warbers came from all around us in the reeds while overhead  from the sky came the tittering call of a migrant Whimbrel and the yodel of a Mediterranean Gull and I am sure I heard the melodic triple tew tew tew call of a Greenshank.

Time continued to slip by as people came and went. Despite the cramped and difficult viewing conditions there was no rancour or complaints from anyone. Everyone behaved sensibly and courteously so the day remained pleasant and amenable

There always comes a time in situations such as this when you know in your inner being that it is time to depart. Approaching noon I relinquished my place, rising stiffly and set off on the long walk back to my car, not a hardship after this morning's experience and with a final farewell bonus of being serenaded on my way by Sedge and Reed Warblers from the surrounding reedbeds.

Ring Ouzels on Cleeve Hill - 13th April 2026

Mark rang me last Friday about taking a trip over the county border into Gloucestershire with Ring Ouzels very much in mind, especially as we had dipped a pair of males on the Oxfordshire Downs at Lark Hill, on a cold and blustery Sunday morning, two weeks ago. 

With both of us having commitments over the coming weekend it was decided we would try our luck on Monday. Our destination was Cleeve Hill, at 330m the highest point in both the Cotswolds and Gloucestershire and situated above the town of Cheltenham, about forty five minutes driving from our homes in West Oxfordshire.

I'll pick you up from yours at eight Mark advised.

On a pleasant Spring morning with the cold wind of the last few days thankfully absent we set forth, charting a familiar course across the Cotswolds, now wryly re-christened the Potswolds due to the appalling state of our roads.

The rural lanes we traverse in our part of the world are now a major hazard to driving and a national scandal but there is little we can do but try and avoid driving into one of the countless potholes and incurring great expense trashing a tyre or even in extreme circumstances, a wheel.We followed a switchback of narrow roads southwest, descending and rising as if on a swelling terrestrial sea, crossing the Cotswolds benign, undulating and unthreatening landscape, now being rapidly transformed from winter brown into vibrant green. We descended the Cotswold escarpment into Cheltenham before ascending the side of Cleeve Hill, driving up yet another cratered narrow lane to its highest point, where a small and very full car park signified we could go no further.

A gate gives access to the wide flat expanse that is the summit of Cleeve Hill and we strode out straight and true across the sward, serenaded by countless Skylarks, although not quite sure where exactly to go. A vague memory of a previous visit suggested we needed to reach the far side of the flat plateau and then descend slightly on the  other side where there was a liberal scattering of golden flowered gorse clumps, hawthorn copses and occasional larger trees.

It was not long before we saw our first Northern Wheatear, a welcome new species for our year list and then, as often happens our eyes picked out several more until we estimated we had seen between eight and ten. Such attractive birds, possessed of a sturdy upright stance and bouncability, full of character and chutzpah, their pale ochre breasts made prominent by the sunlight as they hunted invertebrates in the short green grass.

A small group of Belted Galloway cattle were mooching around, cropping the grass amongst the gorse clumps, the beasts so named because they have a broad white band of fur encircling their rotund middles.

Up to this point there had been little sign of any Ring Ouzels but the sight of what could have easily been mistaken for a Blackbird fleeing into a gorse clump, followed by two others, signified we had found them. 

As ever, shy and ultra wary and never allowing anything remotely like a close approach, they disappeared into the fastness of the gorse, always one frustrating flight ahead as we followed but eventually they flew to perch in small trees, their dark bodies clearly visible amongst the branches or perched on isolated topmost twigs where they could more clearly observe the landscape and presumably us.

They remained as a group, sometimes emitting chuckles of alarm and it became obvious that there were five or possibly six individuals. A good count. Similar in appearance to their close cousin the Blackbird they however have an aura of true wildness about them, far removed from the cosy familiarity of the Blackbird. Not for them the benign confines of suburban gardens and parks but rather they seek the isolation of wild rugged places, where the wind blows across the moor and fell, mountain and stream. Forever wary and fast flying, today they tantalise and enthrall us with fleeting glimpses before slipping away.

Rather than pursue them which always proves pointless and futile we stood close by a clump of gorse and waited and soon enough the perched birds descended to the ground to feed very much in the fashion of a Blackbird.

Ring Ouzels look, to put it simply, very much like our Blackbird but look closer and when seen well both males and females have a prominent and large crescent of white on their breast. In the case of the adult male, pure and unmarked but duller white often sullied brown on the female. Males also show pale edging to their flight feathers which reveals itself as a pale panel on the closed wing. They are longer winged than Blackbirds too which makes sense as they are migrants that come here to breed in elevated areas of northern England and Scotland  and retreat to spend the winter in the mountains of southern Europe and North Africa. I once saw a flock of fifteen in November 2013 at Oukaimeden in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco.

In late March and April they often make a stopover in hilly areas in southern England where they do not breed and feed up before proceeding further north to breed. Cleeve Hill is one of many traditional stopover points in southern England that they use on their migrations. Other traditional locations where I have seen them are Linkey Down in The Chilterns on the border of Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire and The South Downs in Sussex. 

As you can see from my photos, the ouzels on Cleeve Hill remained at the extreme edge of my camera/lens capabilities but one adult male seemed slightly bolder than the rest and rather than fly off with its fellow ouzels chose to continue bouncing around in the coarse grass although still at some distance.

We were entirely on our own at this point and this undoubtedly helped as the disturbance to the birds was minimal and this possibly emboldened two males we found ourselves watching.

Eventually one male flew off but the other remained. We stood stock still and observed him feeding, his prominent white crescent almost gleaming in the sunlight and the pale edging to his flight feathers also noticeable. This was a full male in all his Spring finery and others we saw also looked to be males but at least two were duller, browner and less well marked, possibly being females or younger males.

For ten minutes the male we were looking at continued to feed and even began coming closer and I willed it to keep coming but it suddenly stopped feeding and became alert  with neck extended and head raised and then with a harsh call of alarm flew off. 

Something had troubled it but what?

A voice behind me enquired 

We hope we are not disturbing you. We are not in the way are we? .

A well meaning couple with two dogs had, un-noticed come up behind me and the ouzel on seeing them approaching was immediately on the alert and wary as ever, had flown off in the opposite direction

What can you do but contain your inner frustration and smile and say

No that's fine, carry on

The bird had gone anyway. Cleeve Hill is a very popular place with dog walkers but you always hope that its sheer size and expansiveness make it possible that people can find their own space.

We had one final view of the Ring Ouzels which, unknowingly flushed  by another birder flew to an isolated tree and perched as a group. I counted five.

There's another flying to join them Mark added. 

So then there were six Ring Ouzels.

More birders began to arrive, not many but we knew that for the undisturbed hour we had watched the ouzels we had already had the best of times and it would not get any better so we called it a day.

Coffee and cake Mark?

Why not.