Lovely weather

I watch the Oxon blog all the time and think how lovely it would be to have a flood meadow like Port Meadow, where wader passage is amazing and winter flocks are fab too, or maybe an Otmoor, or a Farmoor, where rarities appear with unfair regularity, even now Otmoor has Bearded Tit and Marsh Harrier.
But we don't have anything like these sites, nor the geography that must have a lot to do with it, so we must be grateful for our humble little patch.

Apart from the later passage of Swifts, Swallows and House Martin, it has gone very quiet and currently not looking like we have Oystercatcher trying again, one piece of great news was successful Little Grebes at Lavell's, which is the fifth attempt in 5 years, 2 definite successful years, 1 possible, 2 failed due to flooding, I was hoping to grab a picture the other late morning, but they were no doubt hiding under the trees, so took scenery shot of Lavell's car park meadow, which looked very nice with swathes of yellow...buttercups?

Off patch about 10 days or so ago, I threw out bread rolls in my garden near dusk and shortly after my wife called me to the kitchen to see our first Mallard in the garden, they go over all the time from Woodford Park at dusk, but this is the first on the deck.