Over the Banbury WhatsApp Group I heard that numbers of brambling at Balscote had increased to record levels, with up to 24 showing; this I had to see. I finished work a little early and made a detour to Balscote Quarry and arrived to find no one else was there.
Within minutes birds started to drop out of the bushes and where normally I'd be searching through chaffinches for a brambling, today was the exact opposite. I scanned the rest of the site and settled on a bench to enjoy the finches and take a few photos. Before the birds could settle again an alarm call was sounded and a sparrowhawk tore into the feeder area, landing on one of the posts that the feeders hang from. I took a photo - it would have been rude not to.
Before the finches returned some other visitors arrived, including a grey squirrel, a rat and a muntjac deer. The deer was surprisingly calm and accepted that I was on the other side of the viewing screen - not the usual effect I have on these beasts. It fed for quite a few minutes, apparently on the seeds scattered on the ground and eventually left of its own accord. What a good-looking animal.
The finches eventually took back control of the area at the rear of the feeder and I counted 22. They were joined by a jay and this also kept to the rear, as distant as could be achieved without being in the trees.
I decided it was time to return to looking over the reserve to make sure I didn't miss anything. There were lapwings on the edge of the water, but my attention was drawn to a buzzard sitting on a post on the far side. As I took a record shot a roe deer stepped on the narrow strip of land between the front and back pools - I was taken by the way the light struck the deer and although I was happy with the photo I took, it didn't really capture the scene.
The light was getting low in the sky and when I spotted a song thrush in a tree to my left I thought I'd have a go at a more artistic shot - not really my usual thing, but not too unhappy with the results.
It was approaching dinner time and so I packed up to head home - it had been a productive hour. As I left, I noticed that a pair of Canada geese has discovered the free food on the ground and again displaced the finches - not the usual species I'd expect to see under a seed feeder!
On Friday evening Kevin Heath and I agreed to meet and have a go at seeing the serin at Maple Cross. It was likely a long shot as Kev had been there the previous weekend, until the rain had thoroughly soaked him and left at 11.00am (only for a recorded sighting to be posted 10 minutes later). Recorded sightings of the bird had been posted on BirdGuides twice on the Friday. We hoped that we'd be spared the mist from previous days, and we were. We parked up at the Tea Shack, popped om some walking boots and made our way to the tree Kev knew was the one favoured by the birds (linnet, chaffinch, brambling and goldfinch and of course our serin).
As we started to climb the slope a singing skylark caught our attention as it rose and then almost immediately dropped. Not too far from us we managed to locate it in the scrub and I fired off a few photos. It soon decided to resume its singing and rose, this time high into the sky above us. We just stood and listened - what a way to start the day - such an uplifting experience being with, and listening to, skylarks.
There were numbers of red kite, buzzard, sparrowhawk and kestrel around, but it wasn't until we got to the top of the slope we found flocks of linnet and goldfinches. We worked through then as they fed in the field and returned to the trees alongside the footpath. Another birder appeared and said he'd been there for a while and still not seen the bird. We spend the next hour with him, taking photos and scanning through them to see if we could identify our target bird.
Our fellow birder departed but we were then joined by a handful more, including a chap with a rather large lens and who had seen the bird four times but never managed a photo. We waited for another hour by which time the flocks seem to have dispersed and only a handful of birds were landing in and around the trees. Recorded sightings have typically been around 11.00am and 3.00pm and so we decided to have a walk down to the Tea Shack and have coffee and a cake - I can recommend the lemon and blueberry.
We were back with the watchers before 11.00am and they reported we'd missed nothing. And so began our vigil. As the day passed more and more people with families and dogs made their way along the footpath, a few asking what we were looking for. A few also seemed to be drawn to stop and chat right underneath the favoured tree. It was proving to be a fruitless endeavour. We were entertained occasionally by a passing kestrel and occasional red kites, but our commitment was not being rewarded.
We set a time that we'd leave and one by one those around us departed. Eventually it was our turn, leaving empty handed. I'm told it hasn't been seen since - who'd have thought, there for months and we were a day late.
I awoke early on Sunday morning and decided not to try and get back off to sleep; instead, I jumped into some clothes and headed for Balscote Quarry. Three roe deer dashed for cover as I settled in, and a jay flew away at distance before I even contemplated raising my camera. A few finches remained around the back of the feeder area.
I saw little grebe on both the front and back pools, coot and moorhen feeding too. There wasn't much else to see until a snipe flew onto the righthand edge of doughnut shaped island in front of me. It was still gloomy, but I could see there were five birds - one did have the appearance of a jack snipe but it was probably just an illusion - birds flew in and out and I counted that there were eight in view altogether.
I counted 24 brambling and once I had triple checked Iain Brown turned up. As we chatted I remarked that the number of brambling had increased and we had a peak count of 41, a record for the site - almost four times the record of 2021.
Again there was a visit from the Canada geese and pheasant, plus song thrush out in the scrub between me and the pools. Steve Holiday came and went, then Claire Curnow. My last photos of the day were of the bobwhite quail visiting the seed at the back of the feeder area - a stunning little bird, still surviving on the reserve. I looked and saw that I'd noted 35 species for the morning. Not bad but not yet approaching the peak of 54 that I'd managed in the spring of 2021.
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