Flyover

I've been meaning to go over to Oxfordshire to take a look at RSPB Otmoor for several years now, without ever quite managing to get round to it. Today was gloriously sunny, though chilly, and I decided (figuratively) to break my duck. It took me about an hour and a half to get there, and I discovered that all the bad things I'd heard about access to the site were understatements, but once I'd squeezed the MX-5 into the remaining half-space in the ridiculously small car park and made it out onto the reserve, I had a thoroughly enjoyable walk, met some nice people, and saw a lot of wildlife.

In four hours I logged thirty five bird species (though none was new to the year list), plus a fox and four roe deer. The bitterns didn't come out to play today, which was a shame, but I had the fun of watching (distantly) a little fracas between a marsh harrier and a red kite, and as I walked along the path between the two viewing screens I was brought up short by the unusual sight of a peregrine sitting in the middle of a field, with lapwings wandering past and around it and showing no interest or concern whatsoever.

If we lived close to Otmoor I think I'd find it irresistible, though I'd probably want to ask R to drive me out there and drop me off, and then pick me up again a set amount of time later. Apart from the access road and the car park, the main downside of the site is that there are no toilet facilities -  given that the bird hide is twice the size it needs to be, it surely isn't unreasonable to think that some of that space could be used for a composting toilet - so voluntary dehydration is the order of the day. By the time I got back to the car park (about a third empty by this time, perhaps suggesting that mornings at Otmoor are busier than afternoons) the inevitable headache was setting in, so having extracted myself carefully from the reserve and the nearby village of Beckley I zoomed over to Farmoor Reservoir, which is blessed with a café.

The woman serving me my coffee asked if I'd seen the famous Eynsham starling murmuration, which to her evident delight keeps happening right opposite her house. According to some RSPB volunteers I'd talked to earlier in the day these starlings would normally be roosting at Otmoor, but they relocated recently when the scrapes and pools froze over, giving predators such as foxes easy access to the reed beds. I haven't seen a murmuration for a couple of years, and and after chatting to this woman I was tempted to swing round there, but I just didn't have the time this evening. However Eynsham lies between Farmoor and home, and I was treated to an unexpected taster as I passed the village in slow-moving traffic: a few hundred starlings, swooping and swirling over the road, against a beautiful gold, pink, and lavender sky. If the traffic had stopped completely I'd have been out with the camera in a flash, but even without photographic evidence it's one of my happiest memories from a very successful day.

I've posted a few more photos to my Facebook page, if you'd care to see them.