May 2026

June 03, 2026

May 2026

May was pretty quiet on the bird-front on my local patches with nothing much of interest at either Blenheim or Ardley. Apart from Ringed Plovers and Dunlin, the quarry at Ardley didn't deliver anything more exciting despite the promise. In fact, the best record of the month at Ardley was a pair of Pintail early on 2nd May which was unexpected and a patch tick. A few Teal lingered into the month before departing, and I again saw the potential "channel" Yellow Wagtail that was there in April, although the light didn't make it easy to get a true idea of the shades on its head. A pair of Little Grebes bred again on the Trow Pool this year which seems a pretty reliable occurrence despite the frequent disturbance from people allowing their dogs to swim in the pool. And it seems likely a couple of pairs of Little Ringed Plovers may breed successfully on the quarry again this year. As can sometimes happen at Ardley, a small number of Swifts fed low over the quarry lake offering a tempting opportunity to try and pap them in some lovely evening light.

Some more images from Ardley this month...

The long-staying pair of Red-crested Pochards bred successfully at Blenheim, marking the first breeding record for this species here. I had thought the nesting attempt had failed after not seeing the drake for over a week, but then on the 29th the pair were on the main lake with one duckling. This duckling looked probably a week old so the presumption is its siblings were predated in that time. I haven't seen the duckling or female again since. The drake is still around on its own so it may well be that the remaining duckling didn't survive. Either that or its hiding very well with the female. It seems to have been a particularly attritional year for the wildfowl at Blenheim.

A pair of Mandarins also bred successfully with a female seen with three ducklings on 31st May. This is the first time I've ever seen evidence of breeding here despite knowing it has occurred before.

I suspect the returning pair of Oystercatchers may have attempted to nest on the island again as I was only seeing one bird for several weeks. But I then saw the pair on the island without sign of any young and they are now seen feeding together once more. So perhaps they tried and failed.

The breeding Egyptian Geese are another example of the challenges of raising young at Blenheim. Two pairs hatched 17 ducklings between them over the past couple of months, ten and seven respectively. Only one survived from the original brood and none from the second. An interesting piece of behaviour I hadn't witnessed with this species before was a brief couple of days when the larger duckling from the first brood joined up with the second brood. If you didn't know better you'd have thought there was one giant duckling in that family. Despite being aggressively territorial, the first pair appeared happy to hand over parental duties to other pair, and they accepted. All of those smaller ones perished within a couple of days and so the big one returned to its folks. I saw a couple of Carrion Crows take Canada and Greylag Goose goslings so it seems they are probably the culprits along with the resident Lesser Black-backed Gulls.

The 1 in 17.

A few Reed Warblers have been singing at various points around the lakes and Common Terns have been around on and off, but as expected things quieten down by the end of the month. Almost incidentally now, the Cattle Egrets have been successful again on the Queen Pool island. There are probably about half a dozen nests as seems to be typical for this colony. It will be interesting to see if more pairs nest during the summer as they have tended to do in previous years.

The only scarce county bird I saw this month was the Little Tern at Farmoor. It was always distant in the centre of F2 but nice to see and only my second in the county.

The spell of cool weather in mid May put the brakes on the inverts, but once the oven was turned on late in the month they didn't muck about and got on with it again. I then had a good run of interesting bits and pieces. The most unexpected was a Marsh Fritillary at Blenheim on 26th. It took me a second to realise what it was as I tried to fire off some shots of it in flight. It didn't settle and frustratingly I couldn't find it again once it flew out of view. As is often the case in these situations, your brain is quick to realise this isn't something in your catalogue of automatic recognition, and you know it's definitely different even if you cannot immediately ID it. I couldn't think what else it could be given the lack of confusion species around here, and fortunately a few of my hurried photos confirmed what it was. Coincidentally, someone had one in their garden in Kidlington on the same day, and another couple were found up towards Chipping Norton, so either some have been released nearby or there's an undiscovered colony somewhere local?

A couple of Small Blues at a local site was also a nice record this month.

Odonata-wise it was a good start to the season with nice views of all the expected early bits and pieces. I managed to add Scarce Blue-tailed Damselfly to my Oxon list thanks to a small number found by Ian Lewington in Didcot. I guess there is a chance of finding these almost anywhere around here with similar habitat that crops up in new housing developments. I will be minded to check any likely looking ditches I come across. I and a few other local enthusiasts enjoyed Gareth Blockley's discovery of several Red-veined Darters at Wroxton at the end of the month. I dipped the one Adam Hartley found at Duke's Lock pond a few days before so it was nice to get another chance so soon after. Hopefully there might be some more to discover in the next few weeks before the resident Ruddy and Common Darters make finding them a lot harder! I also paid a visit to Goring and the stretch of the Thames to see Clubtail dragonflies. Several males were patrolling the water occasionally landing in the vegetation on the river bank giving superb views.