Saturday 17th and Sunday 18th October: Bearded Tits
An excellent weekend on the moor with lots of Autumn arrivals the best of which have to be the nine Bearded Tits that we found on Saturday morning. They were relocated this morning and I managed to get some decent pictures of them despite the murky start to the day. They were a mixed group of both adult and juveniles, they were very flighty and vocal. Sadly I was told that they were seen to fly high this morning at approx 9.30 and head North. They were doing this yesterday as well so it is just possible that they went down onto the Flood Field or decided to come back later. They should be easy enough to pick up if they do return as few calls are as distinctive or charismatic. It would seem that the reedbed is perfect for Bearded Tits and it supported a group of seven birds throughout the winter several years ago. On Saturday morning there was a stedy trickle of small groups of both Fieldfare and Redwing moving westward across the reserve with half a dozen Fieldfare feeding in the carpark Field. There are several pairs of Stonechat to be found on the reed bed and in the hedges. The males are often doing a hovering display, which may be to attract a mate or perhaps to claim a winter territory. Kingfishers were seen from both hides on both days and Cettis are very noticeable with at least five different individuals to be heard between the one in the carpark field and the one calling from beyond the second hide. A Brambling was heard to fly over and three Redpolls were seen and heard in flight. There was a report of Siskins being seen on Saturday beside the bridle way. There are at least twelve Wigeon on the North lagoon, there are a few pairs of Shoveller and at least fifty Teal some of which are just starting to come out of eclipse. We saw two Green Sands and a Dunlin on the South Lagoon.
Cheers Peter
The bearded tits © Peter Barker
Addendum - Some comments on the stonechats hovering behaviour by Ewan Urquhart
Cheers Peter
The bearded tits © Peter BarkerAddendum - Some comments on the stonechats hovering behaviour by Ewan Urquhart
The hovering you observed is not a display either to attract a mate or enforce a territory. The usual reasons are to better observe an intruder and sometimes to locate their invertebrate prey which with winter coming on is more usually to be found on the ground rather than on foliage or flying in the airspace. A lack of elevated perches from which they can hunt and observe from may also contribute to this behaviour. In my experience reed beds often elicit this kind of behaviour possibly because of the dense nature of reed beds and the lack of clear sight lines. Reed beds are not optimum territory for stonechats they usually prefer more open areas with numerous relatively isolated perches of anything from 2-5 feet on which to perch. Hedgerows the other habitat you mention are also not usual stonechat habitat and not often used to perch on
However as it is just males doing this which it often is wherever it is observed then I would suggest that they are using this method to observe more easily whatever intruder is causing them alarm again possibly because sight lines are not good in reed beds. I also note the tracks at Otmoor around the reed beds are sunk below the retaining banks which would again require the stonechat to hover to better see any human or other potential predator walking on the tracks.
Another hypothesis is that the males in this kind of habitat hover to locate the female as they often feed well apart