Last week I went to Otmoor. I like Otmoor. I go as often as I can – which isn’t that often (see here, here, here and here for some previous visits). As you can see, it was an overcast and dull morning weatherwise but an uplifting visit otherwise.
In the winter it’s possible to see murmurations of Starlings but on this trip there weren’t 40,000 Starlings performing synchronised flying before pouring into the reedbed for a good night’s sleep. On this visit the focus was bird song.
In the car park two men discussed the Song Thrush that mimics, it seems to our ears (but no-one has asked the Song Thrush I’m guessing) an Oystercatcher’s call. I heard their conversation while putting on my wellington boots and smiled as the said Song Thrush was doing its said mimicry while the men spoke and they appeared completely oblivious of it actually happening while talking of the possibility of it happening.
As we started our stroll we heard our first Turtle Dove of the visit purrrrring away. We stopped to listen to what used to be a a familiar sound of summer in southern England and which is now a rarity – a sound to be sought out and savoured rather than encountered in the normal course of a birding day, week or summer. We listened and enjoyed what used, not that long ago, to be a characteristic sound of summer and pointed it out each time it re-started its song as we walked on.
As we reached the wet grassland area a Snipe was drumming – it’s throbbing song filled the air but the bird was difficult to pick out by sight. The Snipe makes its drumming song by diving at c45° and allowing the wind passing its body to vibrate special tail feathers. As we located the bird high in the sky we could see it dive and then a split second later the vibrating sound reached our ears. I don’t know whether it is due to the speed of sound being so much slower than the speed of light, or perhaps because the bird needs to reach a certain speed before the sound starts, but it always seems to me that the Snipe has almost finished its dive by the time I start to hear the drumming sound.
At the same time, and for the rest of the walk, there was a Cuckoo singing. I’ve not heard many in England this year and we heard them all the time on this visit.
And as we arrived and then departed there were brief snatches of song from a distant, unseen Curlew.
This was a great visit to an RSPB nature reserve near to Oxford and in that area of central southern England that doesn’t immediately leap out for its ornithological quality.
Otmoor has been protected by the RSPB and BBOWT, and there has been a lot of wetland restoration work too. I can remember, not that long ago, when the wet grasslands we scanned for Redshanks and Lapwings were wheat fields. Now this is once again a fantastic wetland which holds the sounds that were once much commoner in the wider countryside.
In my youth I could not have imagined having to go to a nature reserve to hear Turtle Doves, nor that that would be the way I could hear Cuckoos singing through the morning like they did at the bottom of our garden when I was a kid. There are very few places in lowland England where one now can hear drumming Snipe or bubbling Curlew, and even fewer where one can hear both. In fact, I can’t think of a site in lowland England that is now like Otmoor was that morning. Where else could I have heard Turtle Dove, Cuckoo, drumming Snipe and Curlew on a short stroll?
Maybe you know of some places, but there won’t be many, and we should cherish them, as I cherish my visits to Otmoor.
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Lovely post. Had to laugh at the story of the two men in the car park (no, not THAT one, your one). It reminds me of my several otter-missing opportunities. I won’t accept it’s one of my bogey creatures (Orkney at the end of this month, you’d better produce!) and my only definite sighting (apart from a rescue place) has been a distant head-then-tail in the water on Islay. I had a fabulous wildlife holiday in Scotland once with otter as a ‘target’ species, and whilst we were waiting for the boat back from Eigg, a mother and pup put in a brief but entertaining appearance on the slipway. I was in the little gift/book/shop – reading a book on otters.
Daphne – otters are with the wait. But you don’t want to be waiting for ever. You should see Hen Harriers though. And Orkney is wonderful.
Daphne – otters are with the wait. But you don’t want to be waiting for ever. You should see Hen Harriers though. And Orkney is wonderful.
I’m glad you mentioned the song thrush impersonating an oystercatcher because I heard one doing just that at Ditchford Lakes earlier this year. I was leading a dawn chorus walk, I said to everyone to look up for for the oystercatcher, and there was none. A bit embarrassing, I spotted the culprit a bit later.
Chris – there used to be one T Stanwick which did a brilliant Whimbrel.
Your and Chris’s observations are interesting (especially the Whimbrel one). Here in Sussex, mimicry in Song Thrushes seems to be rare. Blackbirds, however, do it frequently. Perhaps there are regional differences in such behaviour.
“It was a bit embarrassing”.
Yes, but it’s probably a mature bird whose fitness is being advertised in order to get in an extra pair copulation or two.
Size does count: a big song repertoire signals longevity, a well-connected brain and, when performed at dawn, stamina. Irresistible for some. Your discomfort is minor compared to a lot of his male neighbours.
I’ve not been there since 1992, when Marsh Fritillary butterflies were the big attraction. I’m glad it’s come on so well in my decades of absence “oop north”!
Surrey’s NNR, Thursley Common, has Curlew breeding in its spectacular lowland wet heaths and peat bogs.
This common is large by our standards, but 300 years ago Daniel Defoe, travelling through the county, described vast a tract of desert, ‘horrid and frightful to look on’ and ‘so poor and barren … that it only feeds some very small sheep’.
But things have changed since then: now many parts of that ancient landscape have turned into frightful feeding grounds for some very fat cats.
A good week for Otmoor, we had the privilege of showing David Lindo around on Tuesday and he was pleased to hear his first turtle doves in the UK for ten years.
Richard – well done. It was a lovely walk last week.
Of course, David ought to get out more! 😉
Pity Countryfile was wasting time filming in the Angus Glens, this would have been so much better.