A Spring day at Farmoor 26th April 2018

It was back to Farmoor Reservoir today to wander at will, with no particular purpose in mind other than to just generally birdwatch and put my birding fate in the hands of chance.

The surrounding countryside is now rapidly transforming into infinite and subtle varieties of bright green as the fast emerging vegetation eradicates the dull tapestry of winter. The increasing pulse of regeneration brings a sense of urgency to my consciousness as I look around at a landscape that is changing before my eyes into one of bounteous profusion and a richness of life and colour. Ground that has been bereft of plant life throughout winter is now made attractive, simply by the annual cycle that brings another generation to life.

Cowslips, one of the most loved of our  native perennial wild flowers, form dense clusters of nodding yellow heads above the growing grass on neglected verges, their pale stiff stalks holding erect the  deep yellow flowers, each small trumpet shaped flower crowning the end of a pale green and bulbous calyx. If flowers can ever be called sociable then cowslips qualify as they never grow alone but form clusters of plants, growing close to each other and spreading out in a riotous profusion of yellow, like scrambled eggs strewn across the grass.

The western bank of Farmoor's smaller reservoir is especially favoured with them, growing in great swathes but I found a man mowing them to oblivion and on asking why was told that the banks had to be mowed because that is what the reservoir engineer, who had contracted his company to do so, had instructed. After some discussion I spoke to the man's manager on the phone and he agreed that the cowslips could be spared after all and he would advise the reservoir manager. A small victory for common  sense.

Cowslips

Celandines, another messenger of Spring, strike their slimy roots and grow in the damper, shaded  places, forming patches of dark, heart shaped, green leaves  below short stems that support star like flowers of a metallic shining yellow. The brown and bare corridors below hedge bottoms are being concealed by burgeoning plant life. Cow Parsley, Garlic Mustard and Nettles fill the void of winter and creep up through and over the bare twigs and stems at the base of the hedges, where they love  to grow and thrive.

A welcome harbinger of early Spring days, a male Orange Tip butterfly, flies fast and low, stopping its flight for brief moments to touch down on a leaf, before fluttering ever onwards on its quest for a female, the orange wing tips flickering bright like flame in the sun, as it fusses along the hedgeline

Many trees are coming into leaf, some more so than others but the latent promise is there, even on those still partially bare, as their bulging buds of leaf will burst and spread any day now. Blackthorn confounds its name, concealing the dense dark tangle of twigs and branches by clothing itself in a froth of  delicate white flowers. Always the first to flower, each bush forms a large and irregular white patch in the otherwise plain green hedgerows of hawthorn that run between the reservoir and the nearby River Thames. 

As I ventured up the bank to the reservoir's perimeter track it was sunny and bright but a strong and bitter southwesterly wind battered at my windproof jacket. Looking down from the track I found a Mallard and her brood, tucked cosily out of the wind in a little cul de sac of concrete by the sheltered water below me.The ducklings formed a living pillow of soft brown and buff down as they snuggled into each other, using a pad of windblown discarded gull feathers to rest on, whilst their mother, a few feet away, kept a benign eye on me.

Mallard

Further along, where the wind was lashing the waves into a froth against the concrete wave wall, Black headed Gulls were in a frenzy of feeding on whatever was being brought in by the wind blown water. Overhead a dozen or more Swifts arrived from the East, riding the wind on crossbow wings, tilting their stiffly held wings from side to side, tacking like the yachts that ply the reservoir on weekends, as they subjugated the wind to their will. Alternately gliding or on rapidly flickering wings they made their way into the teeth of the wind, high above the reservoir, black silhouettes now, against patches of troubled blue and grey sky.

Only one male Yellow Wagtail was braving their favourite grass bank by the Thames Waterworks, feeding half way down the slope to be out of the wind that was roaring up and over the reservoir wall. As ever it stood out on the green grass, a tiny sliver of olive and brightest yellow.

Yellow Wagtail

As I turned up the central Causeway the wind caught at my windproof coat and set it rustling and vibrating, flattening it against my body. Careering over the open waters of the larger of the two reservoirs there was little to hinder the wind's force and it was far from pleasurable walking into it. Slowly, as I progressed, the pressure of the wind diminished as I passed the epicentre of its direction and force.

Quieter and in a slightly calmer environment now, I noticed, after my eyes stopped watering, how the water levels have fallen on the reservoir, exposing an area of sandy concrete along which a few Pied Wagtails were running by the churning waters. They were reluctant to turn and face me, for if they did their long tails were instantly blown up and over their backs as the strong wind caught at them. Instead, with a bright loud call, they flew back and around me, carried at high speed by the wind to settle once again on the wave wall.

Almost at the end of the causeway I came across four Dunlin, diminutive and as is usual with this species, hardly troubled by my close proximity. To them I must appear huge and potentially threatening as they peer up at me standing ten or more feet above them on the causeway. That they do not flee always amazes me as I must surely seem an intimidating presence. On rapidly moving black legs they scuttle along the water's edge, stopping every so often to regard me and re-assure themselves there is no real need to fly. They feed at speed, picking tiny morsels endlessly from the watery edge to refuel so they can complete their marathon journey northwards.

Dunlin

They are all in their breeding plumage, having moulted and made a remarkable transformation from the drab and grey plumage of winter into an attractive and complex patterning of rufous turtle shell patterned upperparts, and undersides  of white encompassing a prominent gash of black on their belly. They do not like me stopping to photo them and run hastily away but will not take the last resort of flying.

Maybe they are tired. Maybe they do not want to expend valuable energy for such little purpose. I leave them and walk on, only to come to another small wader whose breeding dress is drab, being earth brown above and white below. It is a Common Sandpiper.

The sandpiper's plumage may be of little consequence but it has journeyed thousands of miles from southern Africa, crossing oceans, deserts and huge conurbations to rest here for a day or so before moving to breed either further north in Britain or beyond. Of all the waders that land at Farmoor they are by far the  most wary, hardly ever allowing you to come remotely close to them, before they are away on flickering  bowed wings, flying low over the water, to settle on the far side of the reservoir. As if to confound me this individual allowed a marginally closer approach  than normal but was still unreasonably wary.

Common Sandpiper

At the end of the Causeway I stopped to check the owl box high up on the Thames Waterworks pumping house. Originally put up for the Barn Owls it has long since been commandeered by a pair of Kestrels  and here they breed successfully each year. Today it was occupied by the female Kestrel sat in the opening looking out. Doubtless it felt sheltered from the wind by remaining within the box but soon it would need to hunt.

Common Kestrel

A Cuckoo called for quite some time from the huge venerable Willows  by the pumping station. Sometimes they are easy to locate in the trees but at other times they only reveal themselves as they drop out of the tree and fly from cover like a hawk, sleek and grey, showing white tipped tail feathers and barred underparts, to seek out another perch from which to advertise their presence. Just after it ceased calling, another called much more distantly and I could see it through binoculars perched on an outside bare branch, swinging its long tail around as it swayed its body and called, over and over.

Cuckoo

I sat for a while on a concrete bench on the reservoir's western side, where it was sheltered by a stand of trees and I could be warmed by the sun. Looking out over the glittering waters of the larger reservoir that lay before me I could see hundreds of Sand Martins crossing and re crossing the sheltered southwestern side of the reservoir. With practice it is possible to tell one hirundine species from another just by their shape and jizz. Sand Martins are small, with relatively short wings and tail and a fluttery, fussy, flying style, often moving around in threes in the flock and uttering a distinctive churring call. There is no confusion with Swallows, whose longer wings and tail impart a more leisurely, elegant flight action. I estimated there were  about five hundred Sand Martins feeding over the reservoir waters with just a few Swallows amongst them. It was quite a sight and I spent more time than I needed watching them but I needed to press on and reluctantly rose from the bench.

My intention now was to find some warblers along the Thames Path that runs alongside and below the western end of the reservoir. It was sheltered from the wind here and almost another world, enclosed as it was by trees and bushes on either side.

Thames Water have created three tiny reserves here, Pinkhill, Shrike Meadow and Buckthorn, which provide scrub and good riparian habitat for warblers and I was not disappointed, especially when I found my first Garden Warbler of the year singing lustily from a hawthorn right by the path. Sedge and Reed Warblers are now occupying the reed beds, the rapid, scratchy and almost hysterical notes of the Sedge Warblers that inhabit the margins of the still dead reed stems contrasting with the more rhythmical but still hardly tuneful efforts of the Reed Warblers that prefer the heart of the reed bed, hiding at the bottom of the dead reeds to sing and await the green blades of this year's new growth on which to construct their nests.

Willow Warblers  floated their sweet, wistful refrain, a tiny waterfall of notes, from the thin willow fronds hanging over the path and a Blackcap's rich and note pure warble added to the varied and ever present chorus of warbler song. Finally a Cetti's Warbler announced its hidden presence by volleying an energetic and short crescendo of loud notes  from a sheltered bramble.

I stood quietly under a tree and watched two Blackcaps, a pair, moving about on the edge of a nearby hawthorn hedge.The male, grey all over with a soot black cap was reluctant to come out from the cover of leaves and the secure  confines of a tangle of twigs but the female was less so, her more olive toned plumage duller than the male and with a ginger brown crown. They soon slipped away into the re-assuring cover of the hawthorn. It is early yet for Blackcaps to be breeding but they will soon have a nest in a small elder or bramble.

Blackcap-female

A male Blackbird perched on a nearby gate post and commenced gently singing, his eye ringed with gold and his yellow bill hardly opening.

For those old enough to recall, surely they are the John le Mesurier of bird songsters. The languid, soothing notes, mellow in cadence and delivered at an unhurried pace as if nothing on this earth was troubling or worth getting anxious about.

Would that it were so.