Spotting The Fly 27th June 2025

An early afternoon of sultry heat, ameliorated by a warm west wind on the kind of day you do not want to end, I took myself through hedgerow cloistered,sunlit country lanes to a tiny village I have known of for some years and where without fail a pair of Spotted Flycatchers terminate their annual long and hazardous migration from tropical Africa to build a nest in the idyllic surroundings..

Spotted Flycatchers are one of the latest arriving migrants to reach Britain as their diet consists entirely of insects, so it is late April or early May when they arrive. They have a robin like personality, hyperactive and unafraid of human company, regarding you with what can almost feel to be a knowing look. Unassuming, dull of plumage and with no song to speak of their presence is underwhelming to say the least. Light grey brown above and whitish below with prominent streaking on forehead snd breast it takes close inspection to appreciate their subtle attraction. Spotted derives not from the adult's appearance but from the juveniles, that before their first moult appear spotted due to the buff edges to their upperpart  feathers.

The village I visited today, no more than a hamlet really, dates back to 1086 and yes I suppose you could call it quaint in a very English way, a place of a few scattered, very large, very old houses, one of the oldest being the former Manor House and dating back to 1653. There is the almost obligatory 12th Century church, St James which formerly went by the charming description of a Chapel of Ease.The village has from its humble beginnings become the kind of place desired by people with huge wealth and the only people who can now afford to live there.The former Manor House was sold for £6.5 million in 2022. 

It is here though the flycatchers choose to nest. 

I parked my car on a spur of road  that leads past the Manor House to the church. Beyond the church is gated but although the gate remains closed it is not locked as the road is public to pedestrians and vehicles and carrys onwards into the Oxfordshire countryside. .However there were no vehicles and no people to be seen. It was as if the place was forever deserted although I am sure there was human life behind the ancient high walls protecting the expensive properties.

It was a matter of some ease to find the flycatchers. Parking the car on a wide verge opposite the gates of the former Manor House, the grass already scorched brown by sun and the lack of rain, I walked up the road leading to the church, coming to a paddock overhung by mature beech trees and a wooden railing fence enclosing it.

I heard the flycatchers before I saw them, the tzikkk tzikkk alarm calls of the pair coming from the trees and it was not long before one landed on the wooden railing and commenced flycatching, flying out in a fast, swooping and accomplished flight, low over the grass to seize an insect before returning to the fence.

Constantly active, they hunted insects non stop and I surmised they must have young somewhere nearby either in a nest or newly fledged as one bird caught what looked like a large hoverfly and flew with it up into the trees where I thought I could hear a juvenile calling.

I leant my elbows on a five barred gate and photographed these now scarce birds as they sallied forth from the fence, alternately dappled with sunlight or shaded beneath the dense green overhang of full leafed beech trees.

The fence was obviously the perch of choice for the flycatchers and  judging by the faint calls from the trees above me they were feeding recently fledged young high in the leafy branches.

For forty or so minutes I indulged myself in watching the two birds coming and going and taking numerous photographs, all too aware that this formerly common summer visitor is now an increasingly rare migrant to our shores and to see this pair so close and intimately was a privilege, albeit a poignant one due to their perilous situation in Britain

 

I can recall in the 1970 and 1980's, finding pairs breeding in good numbers in my local parkland in Surrey and it could be said it was a commonplace bird barely worth mentioning..Even in my last home in Kingham there were four pairs when we moved there in 1995 but slowly they declined to just one pair by 2015 and then the next year they came no more.

The Spotted Flycatcher population in Britain declined by 93% between 1970-2022 and they are on the BTO's (British Trust for Ornithology) UK Red List of Birds of Conservation Concern. The reasons for this drastic decline remain uncertain despite several studies being undertaken. There is a suggestion that a drop in the survival of first year birds is a major contributory factor but it is unknown if this is due to factors here in Britain, on the migration route to and from Africa or in its winter quarters in the humid forests of West Africa. Maybe a combination of all three. Another untested hypothesis is the catastrophic decline in large insects in Britain which certainly seems viable to me. 

Whatever the reason or reasons it is an immensely depressing situation, especially as there is no clear answer yet, so any plan to implement measures to help reverse the decline remain in abeyance. A decline in the flycatcher's population's has also been noted across Europe since 1980.

Putting the camera over my shoulder I lent on the wooden railing, the warm wind a balm as sunlight flickered through the restless leaves.and a contemplative mood came over me. An old man leaning on a fence, contemplating, seemed entirely appropriate for the time and place. The church clock struck once, twice, thrice and then fell silent. Pleasant moments such as these are to be treasured. A memory and experience to be banked deep within along with all the others that the natural world has brought me.

It is part of the human condition to possess the physical and mental capacity to enjoy such precious moments but that same condition also engenders reflection and regret as I watch these two birds going about their lives, innocent of their perilous status

I hope it will not be for the last time they come to frequent this quintessential rural village deep in the Oxfordshire countryside, with its landscaped gardens, large trees, open paddocks and ancient churchyard - all ideal flycatcher habitat and I could but feel a sense of optimism, although I cannot say why, that there will  be a Spotted Flycatcher presence here for years to come.

Hope springs eternal does it not?