I arrived at Otmoor at first light this morning on my ill-fated quest to find some White-fronts. This effort was scuppered by relatively dense fog which failed to clear by the time I had to leave. However the atmosphere was very evocative; Peter Barker (the community warden Excellent blog here ) described it as a sound bubble, with distant sounds (like the M40) inaudible and near sounds were amplified (like listening in HD Dolby stereo). The haunting cries of Golden Plover were particularly atmospheric. It was certainly worth getting up for and I still managed to record 40 species (many heard only) Ebird list here .
Highlight was a female Brambling that Peter put me on to - an Otmoor and Oxfordshire lifer (now on 152). It was on the ground feeding area which has a very impressive group of seed eating birds including 30+ Reed Bunting, several Yellowhammer, 25+ Chaffinch, 20 Linnet and the Brambling. If there's going to be a rare bunting, that flock has got to be one of the bets of where it will be.
Also had an usual female Pheasant. Either a dark morph bird or even possibly a hybrid with another Pheasant species (thanks to Barry Hudson for advice) . Ian Lewington has commented as follows 'It looks like some sort of hybrid with possibly some Japanese Green Pheasant influence in its ancestry or perhaps a mutation variant known as a tenebrosus which also produces the blackish male pheasants'. (Thanks Ian)
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