More or Less.

Restricted to views from the car as I treated my Mother-in-Law to a ride round the countryside, this I do at least once a week to give her some relief from the four walls and a television that has become the norm since she has become a resident at a Stanford-in-the-Vale old folks home, excellent staff and excellent conditions but still not life as she used to know it.
A grass field not far from Denchworth held I guess over 200 Lesser Black-Backed Gulls including varying ages of the same species, only had a passing sight of them so it's probable that other species were among them and if I get time on Tuesday i'll see if they're still in the same location.
Later in the day went to Alan Larkmans to try and get a few shots of juvenile Marsh Tit and they were about but every time I pressed the camera button they avoided being taken eventually I gave up, so will try again in a few days time when I hope they will stop having a laugh at my expense. Speaking of photographs we have some super local camera operators and Roger Wyatt is a supreme  example his patience must be "something else" for many of his pics are sublime.
Unable to snap anything interesting today i've posted a photo of a Waxwing I clocked a couple of year past at Aston a few mile up the road from my Bampton residence, this species always causes great excitement when it appears as they do periodically and they usually photograph pretty good too.

camboy

Red Legger Day.

If you read a previous post you will know my cousin is in sunny old Devon getting absolutely soaked or at least he would be if he were able to venture outside into the monsoon-like conditions. While he is away I am feeding his garden birds at his place in Brize Norton and he has a Red-Legged Partridge as a regular visitor although wild it's sometimes possible to get within shooting distance woops! perhaps camera range would be a better choice of words and these pics I shot oh dear! thats to say took yesterday. The Song Thrush I captured on film this morning 9thJuly gloriously exclaiming to Bampton just where he rules the roost and defying any intrusion by any other male Song Thrush.

camboy

Snake in the Grass.

But no need for alarm although the Grass Snake startled me as it slid away a little too quickly for a photo at Shellingford Quarry yesterday, this is a good site for these harmless reptiles and apart from this snake it was quiet on the birding front with only a mixture of Finch a Whitethroat and a very tuneful chorus from Song Thrush and Blackbird. From my photo you can see that I viewed a Blood Vein Moth and a purple/mauve flower that I will leave you to name. The forecast of a huge deluge of rain thankfully failed to materialise although a phone call from a cousin holidaying in Devon told of tropical like rainfall, lets hope it continues to hold off.

camboy

Common as Muck

That cheeky chappie the House Sparrow is in decline in some parts and it brings home to me just how the commonplace suddenly becomes very important when we realise that something taken for granted could be lost forever. With its rather monotonous cheep cheep and somewhat dull colour scheme this bird is often overlooked, but on closer inspection its subtle browns, greys and various shades in between have a beauty all of their own.
Oxfordshire is successfully operating a rescue plan for its cousin the Tree Sparrow although this horrendously wet summer is proving a most difficult time and its looking as though this year is going to be our first real disappoinment in some six seasons of a steady upward trend in breeding numbers, of course many other species are also struggling and we are in the hands of an unseasonal season.

camboy

Hooray Henrys.

Stereotyping is a dangerous practise not least because it often assumes an inferiority of intellect of those who hold views different to ones own. A case in point is the poking of fun at the shooting fraternity as if they are stupid, this I can assure you is most certainly not the case and there are many very clever brains out there justifying the wholesale slaughter of gamebirds, an argument one would think impossible to win, but winning they are although often with suspect research from institutions desperate for funding.
Just look at the clever names of their campaigns SOS (save our songbirds) and songbird survival to an uninformed and usually only midly interested public these are obvious and opinion forming by the use of a few letters. So what can I come up with how about Save Hawks in Trouble  or shit for short doesn't quite roll off the tongue does it ? If we are to get across to the powers that be, we need reasoned and researched arguments. So how do I stand on the killing of creatures for self gratification it doesn't really bother me because things live and things die and so it has always been and always will be and a Pheasant will have no preference to being taken by a fox or shot by a person, indeed it is well to remember that mercy is not an understood concept in the natural world, but what I do care passionately about is when the activities of people seriously impinge on the countryside to such an extent that the way our food is grown and sporting excess result in the loss of species and often with the dubious excuse of " gotta turn a profit guv"  Shooters must and I mean they really must start being more responsible in their attitudes toward a more sensibly balanced countryside and get away from what has been called by themselves The Numbers Game a term first used many years past by shooting folk to describe the guilt felt because of disproportionate and inappropriate numbers of Pheasants released, leading to abuse of the countryside  examples being the supplying of shoot days to the  corporate sector and over indulgence in the slaughter of gamebirds.

camboy

Woolstone Wanderlust.

 Yesterday 4th July had a walk beneath the downs starting at Woolstone a pretty village from where family members visiting gardens open to the public for the weekend had last Sunday seen Spotted Flycatchers.  Nice views of a pair of Bullfinch, couple of Chiffchaff but nothing too exciting from the unusual perspective and most noticable was the unseasonal muddy conditions with water laying in puddles that in a normal year would have been more likely to have been used at this time of year as dust baths. Met a couple from Sheffield who are camping locally at britchcombe farm, and they told me of relations of theirs from Australia who spent a couple of weeks on holiday with them at their Yorkshire home recently and spent virtually the whole of the holiday huddled round the central heating radiators and were glad to get back to OZ. The weather people are talking of a lot more of the same, Great & Blue Tit, Tree Sparrow and Barn Owl are struggling badly and so am I.

camboy

It's Good To Talk.

And sometimes it's good to listen, like the Ben Sheldon talk on the study of diseases in birds, this is an ongoing research project at  Wytham Woods by scientists and assistants of the Edward Grey Instutute. Arranged  as part of the Ashmolean Natural History of Oxford member events I was pleased to see the talk was attended by the best part of a dozen OOS members who like myself left with our heads full of many interesting facts and speculative opinions concerning the mainly avian malaria and bird pox studies currently being undertaken there. The woods were made famous by the pioneering work of the revered David Lack many years ago, initially I believe on the Robin but for a long time now the Great and Blue Tit have been the studied birds along with another project covering Mute Swans. My thanks to the ANHSO and Ben Sheldon for this splendid talk.

camboy