This page will be updated occasionally with the stories behind the finding of some of the rarer birds on the Farmoor List.
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Adult Drake Surf Scoter (M. perspillata), 27th March - 4th April 1998,
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This North American species is a very scarce, but annual, visitor to the UK. Most records are of birds associating with large coastal flocks of Common Scoter. It is extremely rare inland, with just a handful of records. Happily Farmoor belongs to the exclusive club that has hosted this most striking of ducks. It was found by Farmoor stalwart Dai John and his exciting account of it's discovery is reproduced below:
“Every Friday afternoon since the early nineties, I have been making a routine walk around F1. On 27th. March 1998 I was walking towards the car park when a bird flew overhead. Gathering my scattered thoughts together, and with my eyes finally connecting to my brain, I realised that I had just seen a drake Surf Scoter! This was a species I believe had only been sighted inland in the UK on just a few occasions.
With mounting panic I hurried back to F1 hoping that the bird had landed and not just flown over, stopping now and then to scope for this rarity. I had retraced my footsteps back to half way along the causeway without a sighting at this point. Dejected and miserable that I had not found the bird, I sadly walked again in the direction of the car park. Pausing to look at some Goldeneye, and admiring a splendid male I was amazed to see the Surf Scoter amongst them!
A second panic attack, what if it flies off without anyone else seeing it, would I be believed? My journey to the car park seemed to take for ever. Looking around desperately for a warden to access his phone. (this was in my pre- mobile days.) and without finding one, I hurried home to use my land line to spread the news.
The first people I contacted were Peter Allen and Steve Heath. Steve phoned Ian Lewington who quickly spread the word. My last sighting of the celebrity was on the evening of fourth April when he allowed me to get within ten metres of him as though as a farewell gesture. Oh if only I had had a digital camera in those days!”
© Dai John, Oxford, 8/12/08.
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Happily this proved to be a relatively long-stayer and it received a steady stream of visitors from far and wide. It was a stunning bird, being an adult drake in early spring. It showed a preference for F.1 and gave extremely good views. Given that Surf Scoter is most often encountered in British waters bobbing around in the surf, often many metres offshore, this individual gave those birders that were lucky enough to witness it probably their best ever views of the species.
One avid county lister, who was away birding in Spain at the time, was staggered when calling "Birdline" on landing back in the UK to hear the number one message: "In Oxfordshire the adult drake Surf Scoter is still at Farmoor Reservoir"!!
Many thanks to Ian Lewington for taking to time to supply the ‘video-grabs’ reproduced above.
© Nic Hallam All photos: © Ian Lewington.
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Adult Long-tailed Skua (S. longicaudus) August 31st - September 6th 1995
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This exciting bird was found by Brian Han, who is a resident of Filchampstead, a tiny 'hamlet' nestling beneath the east bank of F.2. Brian is well known to most local birders as "The bloke who found the Long-tailed Skua". Brian, by his own admission, is not a 'birder', but takes a passing interest in the wildlife on his doorstep.
On the afternoon of 31st August 1995 he took a walk up the reservoir embankment and was almost immediately confronted by a very curious looking bird sitting on top of the wave wall. He knew it was something different, and thought that it may be a Tern of some sort. Taking a short stroll towards the car park Brian found a couple of birdwatchers and informed them of his find. They didn't seem to take his sighting too seriously and failed to follow it up. The next morning Brian found the skua in exactly the same spot. This time he managed to persuade another birdwatcher to have a look and it was then quickly identified it as an adult Long-tailed Skua!
It was an absolutely superb bird in full adult summer plumage, in particular the two central tail feathers were complete and very impressive (these feathers are often broken or damaged late in the season). Whilst Long-tailed Skuas do occasionally occur at inland waters in late summer/early autumn, they are almost always juveniles. It was ridiculously tame and allowed a very close approach. This led some to suspect that it may have been in poor health, but it fairly regularly undertook quite lengthy sorties around the reservoir perimeter and it's flight was powerful and direct. It was seen to feed well on dead fish at the reservoirs edge. Keeping more or less to the south east corner of F.2 the skua stayed for a further five days, finally departing on the evening of 6th September.
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Not surprisingly such a charismatic bird was visited by many admirers during it's stay, but very few photographs exist, particularly flight shots. This was at a time before everybody owned DSLR cameras! It is also fairly incredible that such a distinctive bird was present for at least 24 hours and was not found independently. Certainly the reservoir is much more intensively watched these days. One can only imagine what a heart-stopping moment it would be to suddenly be confronted by such a magnificent bird!
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Many thanks to Ian Lewington for taking the trouble to copy his old slide film into digital format for this article.
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© Nic Hallam ***** All photographs © Ian Lewington
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