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Oxfordshire Birding – Out of the blue

outofthebluesky.co · 1,961 words · saved by 1 readers

August is a great month on my local patch. The focus during the second half of the month is on recording the locally scarce trio of Western Yellow Wagtail, Spotted Flycatcher and Tree Pipit. The wagtail and the flycatcher have been annual in very small numbers for the last seven years, but Tree Pipits are much harder to connect with. Tree Pipits have been recorded on average about once every other year in the Lye Valley area, although the last record was 28th August 2022, with 2023 and 2024 both being blank years. My experience is that I hear Tree Pipits migrating overhead in periods of high pressure: nice sunny mornings, with either no wind or just a gentle south-westerly breeze. I don’t usually record them at very first light, which can be before 5:30am in mid-August, but often between 7am and 9am. This leads me to think that the birds that pass over this part of east Oxford have roosted elsewhere, and then have begun their migration at dawn, passing over me an hour or two later. The

A glorious dawn The third Oxon Big Day by Bike began at the Plain roundabout in Oxford city at 4am on Saturday 25 th April 2026. The local bar was just locking up; the flashing lights of electric scooters illuminated the otherwise deserted roads. I was the first to arrive, quickly followed by Ben Sheldon, Max Buckley and then Thomas Miller. We cycled east and were soon passing through Elsfield, where the mournful wail of a Peacock rang out. Keen as we were to start recording birds, even we did not stoop so low as to tick Indian Peafowl. Instead, bird#1 was, as expected, a singing European Robi

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