The Birdless Cuddesdon Blog

A treat - I'm home from work early and there is still enough light to spend 90 minutes in the flooded fields of the Thame valley to the east of the village. There are 60 Skylarks, 5 Buzzards, 3 Grey Heron and 3 Mute Swans in the fields on the way down, plus the usual Roe Deer herd:The floodwaters are receeding, but are still attracting wildfowl: at least 12 Mallard, 26 Canada Geese and 1 Cormorant. A distant waterbird on the floods to the north is interesting enough to make me walk through the waterlogged fields to check it out. At extreme distant range it appears small, low on the water and pale brown. At distant range I'm 80% sure its a Little Grebe. At mid-range... it disapears, never to be seen again. Bugger, thats one I'll need to claw back at some point. Working my way south along the river I flush 2 Snipe (they'll be a Jack Snipe here one day) and there's a flock of 5 Grey Heron:

In fact there a excellent numbers of birds about near the floods at Chippinghurst: 80+ Black-headed Gulls and a big pre-roost flock of 300 Lapwing:
Finally, I flush 4 Snipe from the edge of the set aside, making 6 for today, the best yet.