New OxPods episode is out! Found on our website, Spotify, Google and Apple podcasts.
The trajectory of evolving species is strongly affected by the environment in which they exist, and one particularly interesting example of this is when organisms evolving on islands differ predictably from their continental counterparts through a suite of morphological and behavioural traits, known as ‘The Island Syndrome’. But what is it that’s so special about islands that leads to this process, and what can biologists learn from the species that exhibit the syndrome? In this episode of OxPods, I chat to Prof Sonya Clegg, an associate professor of evolutionary ecology at the University of Oxford who studies the processes that promote species divergence
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New OxPods episode is out! Found on our website, Spotify, Google and Apple podcasts.
Sex is so widespread that you could assume it’s essential for life as we know it, playing a central role in the evolution and the development of animal and human societies. However, it’s not the only way of producing offspring, and compared to asexual reproduction, sex actually entails a number of costs. Because of this, ‘Why sex?’ is one of the most fundamental questions in biology that has puzzled scientists for many years. In this episode of OxPods, I chat to Dr Chris Wilson, an evolutionary biologist whose research aims to uncover why sex exists. I had a very grey walk around Farmoor reservoir to catch up with some of the site's classic winter species, as well as a few unusual visitors. The female greater scaup was showing well, a species that has been wintering at this site for a number of years now, but always as a single individual or in very low numbers. Additionally, a lovely pair of red knot were found along the causeway. Large numbers of this species winters in the UK away from their Arctic breeding grounds, but its an unusual species to see in central Oxfordshire seeing as they mostly congregate along our coastlines.
2023 was my best year of birding so far, seeing 197 species in total (21 more than the previous year), including a massive 36 lifers! This is reflective of a few things: more time spent birding local patches; a few trips to new places; and a generally increasing love for knowing what birds are around me wherever I go. The first of these (birding local patches) was something relatively new to me. I focussed on an area which I've posted about previously - a 2km squared patch in the northeast of the city of Oxford. I visited this site over 100 times during the year, made easy by the fact that I walk through part of it on my way to and from work. Highlights include my daily visits after fieldwork in the spring to a small flood, which luckily didn't dry up until May allowing for a few interesting waders which dropped past on their migrations (including lapwing, green sandpiper and common sandpiper). Also, a few lucky flyovers from species such as yellow wagtail and oystercatcher in the spring, and brambling and merlin in the winter, brought my tally up. Significant flooding in the north along the river Cherwell allowed for a shelduck and great white egret (the last two species seen on the patch before the new year!). However, the main highlight for me was the totally unexpected barn owl which flew off a roosting site in September, I'll be sure to keep my eyes out for it in the future as this is a relatively rare species to see within the city. In total, I saw 97 species on this site - not bad for a non-coastal urban patch! Visiting new places both within and outside the UK was also a great way to see new species. A trip with the research group to Norfolk in February was made special by seeing tonnes of brent geese, pink-footed geese and whooper swans across a number of sites; shore lark at Holkham bay; and a long-eared owl and snow bunting at Cley. I took an Easter break with my family to the Cairngorms, which featured one of my birding highlights of the year with a pair of golden eagles on my birthday; and a post-field season camping trip to Gloucestershire was a great opportunity to see the returning bluethroat. Visiting my girlfriend's family in Paris meant I was able to see some species rarely seen in the UK, including a black kite along a main road just outside of the city, as well as short-toed treecreeper and middle spotted woodpecker in a large metropolitan park. My annual family trip to Scilly was fantastic this year, with the pelagics sea trip bringing Wilson's storm petrel and three new species of shearwater. Finally, a trip to Copenhagen with my sisters in December included a short walk around Naturecenter Amager, where I saw my first ever rough-legged buzzard. 2024 will be an interesting year. I'll be finishing off my PhD and am unsure of where I'll be going after that - but I'm excited to see what this uncertainty will lead to (both bird-related and bird-unrelated!). Top 10 2023 bird moments: 1. Pair of golden eagles on 8th April (my birthday!) undergoing pairing behaviour from the summit of Creag Choinnich in the Cairngorms. 2. Small flock of shore lark glistening in winter sunlight after a long walk trying our best to find them on 25th Feb at Holkham Bay. 3. A beautiful bluethroat posing on a post to a small group of birders on 16th June at WWT Slimbridge. 4. The wood warbler with its ridiculously beautiful song trilling and showing well on the 29th April in Wytham Woods after a check of my nest-box round. 5. Finding a common sandpiper on the 23rd May after many daily trips to the local Marston Meadows flood. 6. A pogo-ing Wilson’s storm petrel dashing past the boat on the 24th July on a pelagics seabird trip off Scilly. 7. A couple of beautiful singing woodlark on the 26th February in south-east Oxfordshire. 8. An eery spotted crake singing its unusal drip-drop like calls at dusk on the 29th April at RSPB Otmoor. 9. The sudden appearance of a Goshawk when watching one of the data collection drone flights on 21st March at Wytham Woods. 10. Ringing my first firecrest on 28th September caught at Portland Bird Observatory.
I recently took another trip down to Portland Bird Observatory with the research group I'm part of for a few days of ringing. Portland is an isle in Dorset, tied to the mainland via a very thin barrier beach called Chesil Beach. It's an excellent place to go birding during the autumn migration period as many birds that have spent their summer breeding throughout the UK treat it as their final drop-off point before making the long trek back to their various wintering grounds. As well as birdwatching, it's specifically a great place to go ringing during this time of the year, and, weather-dependent, the days can become very busy going back-and-forth to the nets to ring and collect data on the many pipits, swallows and warblers which pass through. This year, we had a mix of weather, which allowed both for busy days of ringing at the observatory, as well as some local birdwatching at nearby sites. The highlights of the trip were our visit to Abbotsbury swannery (where we got the chance to ring a few swans, as well as getting good views from an unexpected osprey), and having the chance to ring a couple of new species (including rock pipit, grasshopper warbler and a firecrest). The full trip yielded 96 species in just four days, with the entire trip report found here.
I had another fantastic year in Scilly, and although the weather was probably the wettest, windiest and greyest it has ever been for me during a summer visit, there were still plenty of opportunities to get out and see the wildlife!
It started with a relatively calm crossing on the Scillonian III ferry, accompanied by lots of dolphins, manx shearwater and a few porpoises. Once I arrived, I got to see a lot of species over the two weeks, with the absolute highlight being the pelagics boat trip which I have written on in an earlier post. Other highlights included a great wader-fest evening on Tresco's south beach, with over 100 sanderling joined by ringed plovers, dunlin and turnstones; and 15 Scilly bird firsts for me including a green sandpiper and black-tailed godwit. The full eBird trip report can be found here! I had an incredible trip boating a few miles south-west of Scilly to see what the pelagic wildlife had to offer. Although not one for those prone to sea sickness, it's amazing to see the biodiversity that thrives in such open waters: a smattering of dolphins, many many jellyfish, and singles of fin whale, blue shark and sunfish. However, the highlight for me was, of course, the seabirds. There were hundreds of manx shearwaters skimming the waves, a modest flow of European storm petrels darting through, and an unprecedented four bird species which I've never seen before (sooty shearwater, great shearwater, Cory's shearwater and Wilson's storm petrel)! eBird checklist found here for record shots of some of the species mentioned.
After a couple of months of fieldwork in Wytham Woods, I decided to take a two day break birding in Gloucestershire (an area close to home but one that I have surprisingly never visited any reserves in!). The first day took me to WWT Slimbridge, a site widely-famed in the UK for its diversity and stronghold of certain wetland species. The 4-hour stomp around the site took me to 69 species, including the absolute gem of a returning white-spotted bluethroat. This is a species that is normally only seen as a passage migrant on the east coast of the UK in the spring and autumn as it moves between breeding sites in eastern Europe and its wintering sites in Africa. However, in Slimbridge, a male bluethroat is holding territory for the third year in a row. After acting very elusively for the last few days, on the morning I arrived it was showing beautifully from a nearby shepherd's hut hide and I managed to get some photos - a lifer for me! As well as this highlight, it was also great to see large numbers of avocet, barnacle goose, shelduck and black-tailed godwit at the reserve, in addition to the very graceful black-winged stilt.
On the second day, I visited a couple of sites: Coombe Hill Meadows and RSPB Nagshead. The first of these was a moderately-sized flood meadow with a canal running alongside. Here, there was at least one pair of breeding yellow wagtail, and a great diversity of waders on the wetland scrape. Despite being a lot less than half the size, it provided sightings of just 8 species less than Slimbridge. In the Forest of Dean's Nagshead, I saw a different range of species due to the much more wooded habitat, including spotted flycatcher, siskin and a female redstart. Over the entire trip, I saw 94 species, taking my UK year total to 168 (very close to the number I ended on at the end of 2022!). Trip report available on eBird. With my fieldwork commitments growing over the past month, it has become much more difficult to invest time into proper birdwatching and wildlife photography trips. But with my taking part in the Patchwork Challenge this year, it's been hard to resist regular checks of the flooded parts of my local Marston patch in the hope of some dropping waders, and twitching the rarer species seen within 10k of my home in Oxford. This has led to a few weeks of terrible photos of interesting birds!!
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Joe WoodmanA blog of my ideas, photography and research of the natural world. Archives
February 2024
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