Annual

Well it is that time of year again. Grass fire time. Wanstead Flats is being repeatedly set on fire by either idiots or full-on arsonists. In July the bit to the east of Alex went up again, it had just about recovered from the last fire. We lost about ten acres on Monday in the SSSI, and at some point in the the last few days an area near Angel Pond has disappeared as well as a new part of the SSSI.

Motorcycle Wood

It's annual now. Each year by late July the patch is tinder dry, fires just waiting to happen. This was a major fire. I was coming home on the bus on Monday and could see fire engines and blue lights everywhere, towers of smoke and flame. As you can see above Motorcycle wood has been saved by the monumental efforts of around 70 firefighters, but it has been burned on all four sides. 

Walking around the area a few days later, I came across this:

Is it any wonder? When will these things be banned - they're for sale in shops about two minutes walk from Wanstead Flats, prominently displayed outside on the pavement as you walk towards Forest Gate. This falls into the idiot category of course, but I do wonder if these fires are more sinister. They seem to be so close together, only a day or so apart. The cynic in me thinks about someone looking on in delight as all this goes on, and when that high has diminished creeps out and starts another one. Who knows? As far as I know none of these fires have ever been traced to anyone, including the massive one a few years back that nearly caused my street to be evaculated in case it crossed the road. Those flames were several metres tall, I remember the whole area being in a cloud of smoke, it was like something out of Apocalypse Now.

Angel

This is our future. Annual fires destroying the habitat, more pressure on breeding sites and feeding areas. And it seems only a matter of time before one of these coincides with a hot and very windy day and it becomes more than a grass fire. Let us cross our fingers that never happens. Anyway, that's the news from the patch as autumn begins.

Back in the saddle

I always find it hard to get back to the patch after a trip away, especially to somewhere with lots and lots of tropical birds. Central and South America is the worst in terms of come down. The magic of air travel is also a curse... On Tuesday you can be in a jungle seeing Tanagers and Hummingbirds. On Wednesday morning you can be back on your local patch seeing..... Exactly. I tend to have to leave it a few days to kind of sober up before venturing out locally again, and this time it took 11 days - I'd been in Mexico. Partly this was as I was busy the first weekend, partly it was that the weather was rubbish, but mostly it was just apathy.

I finally made it out on a beautiful autumn morning and felt glad to be alive. Birds were few and far between as often happens on clear days, but it was very nice and I remembered how lucky I am to live with this on my doorstep. It's not the coast but it could be a lot worse. A lot worse. So I've been poking about, mostly vismigging, and today in quite murky weather it finally came good. 

The anticipated Brambling duly brayed just after 7am and continued to do so for another quarter of an hour. I mean it may have been several birds moving through, who can say, but  depsite being a few minutes apart the calls always seemed to come from the same place so I have put it down as just one bird. It got better though, a lot better, as just before 8am I picked up an unfamiliar call but one that I had hoped I might hear. Hawfinch! Where was it???! There! Over the Model Airfield, curving over the Skylark area and over one of the copses, calling all the way, a slightly underwhelming metallic spik whereas really this species should give a deep booming call like a Bittern or something. It was still pretty murky so the views were less wonderful than I had hoped, but on size and shape it looked very decent. Marco and Jim had just left me and so annoyingly missed it, possibly as I had just asked them to stop chatting quite so much as I was trying to listen out for .....Hawfinch. The birding Gods up to mischief again? Maybe.... Regardless, calls are absolutely critical for VizMig and if I don't engage in the conversation and move down the path a little way, that's why.

The path from Brick Pits to Long Wood, almost impassable the last few months, has been re-established.

Gratifyingly but at the time unbeknownst to any of us, Bob's recorder had picked up Hawfinch about 40 minutes earlier from his garden. A first for local sound recording as far as I am aware, but not the first time that a bird recorded over his garden has subsequently been found on Wanstead Flats a short while later. I think exactly this scenario played out with one of the first Tree Pipits of the autumn as well. Obviously in one sense this is purely circumstantial, but then again this isn't criminal law and it makes perfect sense that a bird zipping over Chateau Bob could a few seconds later be over Wanstead Flats and decide that yes, this would make a good place for a pit stop. This is the first local Hawfinch since the irruption of 2017/18, and at this point is one of many London records. In other words it appears to be happening again. Last time I recorded the species five times, and it was at exactly this time of year - late October/early November - so hopefully there will be more.

Offensive fence offences

The battle for the fence is in full swing. On the one side, the birdwatchers of Wanstead Flats, the local wildlife group, and the Corporation of London. On the other, a small band of pathetic local vigilantes. Each morning the birders and wildlife volunteers find small sections of the fence cut, and each morning they repair it with spare rope that they carry. The next morning we find that it has been cut again and so we repair it again. This happens literally every day. It is quite tiresome and detracts from birding, but at the same time the damage is repaired very quickly and the integrity of the fence restored. Damaged or undamaged, it is having the desired effect of keep people and dogs out of the main Skylark breeding areas.

The damage is almost always where the footpaths intersect with the fence, a clear message that a person's right of way trumps wildlife. Sometimes a real rage descends, and not only is the rope near the paths cut but also anywhere where there is a sign about Skylarks. Sometimes the signs themselves are hacked to pieces. The mind boggles, really it does. Can you imagine a grown adult becoming so incensed with a sign about protected birds that their reaction is to kick it down and cut it up? I can't. This is the reponse of a truculent child, a spoilt brat. Every evening, or early morning, or possibly in the middle of the night, they sneak out with scissors or a knife and engage in this petty vandalism. No doubt it makes them feel good, important, untouchable and full of anti-woke virtue. They need to have a long hard look at themselves.

Some mornings after this red mist the damage is so severe and the Corporation has to send out a team to repair entire lengths of it. Last week I was first on site and discovered over 60 sections of fence cut through, signs slashed and thrown to the ground. As you might expect CoL are getting a little fed up of it, and rightly so. Lines have been drawn, the Police are involved, and they are out to catch the perpetrators. There is now CCTV, and signs warning of this. One person has already been caught in the act, a dog walker who in the middle of the day and casually as you like approached the fence, cut it, walked through the gap and all the way across the Skylark area before cutting the fence at the other end and walking out. Entirely deliberate, brazen. Happily they've been identified and the various follow ups that you would expect are apparently in hand. On another day a jogger decided to hop over the fence and carry on down the main path; they were apprehended on the spot by the Epping Forest Constables and told in no uncertain terms that they would not be doing that again. Turns out there was a language barrier, but at the same a physical barrier is a physical barrier and you shouldn't need to be able to read a sign to understand that a fence is there for a reason.

But the strong feeling is that the main vigilante, or possible several, are still out there and remain deeply committed to sending their message. So be it. They're outnumbered, out-gunned, and ultimately they are ineffectual - the fence remains, the Skylarks are within it and are singing away. No doubt these people are very pleased with themselves but that will change when they're caught. This isn't a one off, a mistake, oops, mea culpa. Every time the fence is damaged we're photographing it, sending the evidence to the Corporation, and a case is being built. As well as cameras there are now also patrols, official and unofficial, and we're collectively all committed to finding and stopping these people. And when that eventually happens, as surely it must as we've only got to get lucky once, they're not going to be let off with a slap on the wrist. It's gone way beyond that at this point. Watch this space.

I should moan more often than I do, Ahem.

Well well. My last post essentially had me moaning about how the patch has been less than spectacular of late and how I was thinking about birding elsewhere. This morning - on the patch, like the decisive person I am - Tony and I were having much the same conversation. His fiftieth visit this year apparently, he'd seen very little and found nothing. What was the point, it's rubbish, next year he too was going to do something different as well, oh look clear skies again. Etc.

It was true, a promising morning had delivered nothing. We had walked about four miles and the best bird had been a Stonechat. So much for the slightly colder weather, but at least it wasn't raining and it did feel a bit more like November. We went to get breakfast from Gregg's, usually the highlight of any morning round here and took it back to the VizMig Point? Where shall we stand to see nothing? How about here, it's as crap as anywhere else. Right. 

Restored, we had one last wander down Centre Path where we met Mary and continued moaning. Then a message popped up on Tony's phone from some kind of London Rare Bird Whatsapp group that I'm not part of. Whooper Swans flying north west over Woolwich. I casually looked at the map.... Hmmm, that's interesting. Depending on where in Woolwich that would potentially have them flying somewhere towards Canary Wharf and perhaps over Stratford. Could they follow the Lea Valley? How high might they be? High enough or not? We can only see the top third of the tower, I thought about dashing home to my balcony but it was too far. We started scanning towards the south west.

Birds have a funny habit of not always flying in straight lines and it was with this in mind I also scanned to the east from time to time. Remarkably on one of these scans I picked up five Swans over Alex, quite high and flying with some purpose in a north-north westerly direction. Too far to conclusively identify through binoculars but surely two plus two equals four in situations like this? Or rather five. Where was my damn camera?! Oh, at home gathering dust as usual. Excellent. Quick, Tony, take photos I implored! It doesn't matter how far they are, get something and maybe we'll be able to eliminate Mute Swan on head shape! This he proceeded to do until the Swans had disappeared over the horizon, seemingly continuing on their NNW heading.

The back of the camera images magnified through inverted binoculars looked decent, nice long triangular heads and long slender necks, but I remained worried that once seen on a computer I'd need to post an embarrassing retraction on the London news group. Even more so when some time later five Whooper Swans were reported at Rainham, i.e. in the opposite direction.... Oh dear. I nearly threw Tony off the patch! Go home! What are you waiting for?!

Whooper Swan over Wanstead, courtesy of Tony Brown.

Thankfully once home (painfully slowly I might add!) Tony's photos confirm our initial confidence. These are actually the first Whooper Swans for the patch that we know about. There are a handful of records of Bewick's Swan, two from the dawn of time and then a sighting from Nick about six years ago during cold weather, but no Whooper. We seem to have pulled off an amazing coup despite all our pessimism! We were expecting the next sighting to be in the Lea Valley somewhere, perhaps KGV, but presumably the birds flew in a gigantic circle and ended up back on the Thames at Rainham where they were seen about 45 minutes later. This takes my all-time patch total to 167, and this year to a slightly-above-average-for-November 112. Can't wait to get back out tomorrow!

Out of the dawn

 It's vizmig season, finally. Despite the crazily nice weather, for the birds it is verging on winter. The first reports of large numbers of Thrushes came from further north last week, as well as the first Short-eared Owls coming off the North Sea. Winter. There was a smattering on Sunday which I missed, this morning the taps were properly turned on.

I managed to get out by about 7.15am. Would that I had managed to get my arse in gear a little earlier as from almost my very first pace it was clear that there was a lot of movement. I'd passed 150 Redwing within minutes, and once stationed at the Vizmig Point the counting began in earnest. I won't bore you with a blow by blow account, suffice it to say that the action was more or less non-stop until I left. In fact, even after I left...

I tallied 820 Redwing, 19 Fieldfare, 5 Mistle Thrush, 3 Song Thrush and a Ring Ouzel, almost all west. The largest flock of Redwing was in the mid-eighties, and I hadn't recorded a single Fieldfare until I'd got to over 400 Redwing. I'd seen Ring Ouzel in the spring, but it was still a special moment when it flew past on an off-kilter northerly heading before veering east and disappearing behind the trees of Coronation Copse. Maybe it landed, maybe it didn't. There were also the first decent numbers of Chaffinch and my first Siskin of the autumn.

Further quality came in the shape of a distant Great White Egret flopping slowly east at quite some height. Initially just an Egret, it took a little while to work out that something wasn't right,  piece together what those things were and happy conclude this was the better of the two; Remarkably this is my sixth on the patch, unthinkable only a few years ago. Everyone there was able to just about get on it as well which was rather good, particularly as it was so high; there were no landmarks and directions other than in most general sense were impossible.

I left the patch highly satisfied with my morning's work. Shortly afterwards Simon picked up a Short-eared Owl, a bird that I've been hoping for for a few weeks now. I thought about dashing back to try and get its rear end but I was late as it was, hopefully there will be another - I just looked up my patch records and I've seen 11, so they're not especially rare but neither are they annual. One thing is for certain, I will be back out tomorrow.

Life in the Freezer

This blog and its title don't often see eye to eye these days. I'm aware of this and I don't really mind that much. Hats off to those who continue to write about their local goings on though, I still read a few of them and wish I could diligently do the same. Once upon a time I was right there with them, and maybe one day I will be again, but right now it is hard. Part of it, I am sure, is that I don't take a camera round with me any more, and when I don't have a photo any words I may come up with seem to fall flat. I could take a camera - I have several as regular readers will know - but I just don't enjoy birding locally with a camera as I can't take the kind of photos that I enjoy taking. Yes I could take a photo of Blue Tit with a bunch of twigs around it, on one of which would likely be swinging a small bag of dog shit, but for some reason it just does not appeal, despite the likely positive impact it would have on my creativity. No, these days I much prefer to just have a wander around with bins, seeing what I can see. Readers would of course be forgiven for thinking that I never bird the patch any more but that is simply not true - I have submitted 101 checklists this year so far and there are a few more to come. It is just that I cannot be bothered to write about it very much as I find it essentially impossible to make it sound interesting. Those 101 checklists cover 115 species, including two patch lifers in the form of Merlin and Tree Sparrow. I think I probablty did mention these, but of course those are exceptional events. Most patch visits see a succession of the same birds - as anyone who regularly birds a patch will know, at times you do feel like a broken record, simply going through the motions as the seasons change. I've been here before is a frequent feeling, and I often wonder why I am doing it. Then I remember that the alternative would be to sit indoors being bored and getting even chubbier.

I have no upcoming New Year's resolutions about how I am going to bird Wanstead like never before. Pointless. I am going to do what I enjoy most at the moment, which is a bit of everything and a fair amount of travel. It will therefore perhaps not surprise you to hear that I am writing this not from Wanstead but from Scotland, where I am passing a few days in a warm house with an Aga. My parent are old and both need and can afford to pay for heating. They are very lucky, and so I am to be here - my own house in Wanstead is basically a fridge for large parts of the day. We can also afford heating but we prefer to use it sparingly for all sorts of reasons. I missed most of the recent cold snap by virtue of being in Lanzarote, more of which later, but I did come back to freezing conditions and a local landscape covered in ice. I dread to think what has happened in my greenhouse as I am not heating that either..... I was too late for the early pulse of Lapwing and Golden Plover, and in Scotland for the most recent birds, but during the two days I was at home I did manage a single bird out of the 400 that passed over. 

The patch was beautiful actually, the snow covered all the litter and the crap,and for a few days it looked simply glorious. I walked to work one day across Wanstead Flats - very few birds other than 102 Redwing and 5 Fieldfare, but it was one of those freezing yet clear days that make you glad to be alive and in one piece. I nearly ruined the in one piece part by coming within a whisker of falling over of the ice several times, but managed to recover on each occasion and make it to the train station. This being the UK there were of course no trains. This particular train service, the brand new Elizabeth Line, was not on strike, but fell into line anyway by breaking down. Excellent. I walked half way to work instead as there didn't seem to be many buses and those that did pass were rammed as there were no trains. I should have stayed in Lanzarote. 

Tree Sparrow

The Tree Sparrow was still present this morning, despite me bringing my camera out. It seems more wary than yesterday, indicating a recent arrival perhaps. It rarely perched up, and spent most of its time either hiding from people or feeding on the ground. When anyone approached it flew back into the brambles and didn't come out until they had retreated. Nonetheless I managed a grab shot when it made a mistake and perched on a twig for a nanosecond. Bad luck! The last record was in 1987, not 1985 as I had originally thought. Their decline in London has been phenomenal - breeding pairs at Beddington declined from 61 in 2012 to nine in 2013. In 2020, zero. At Tyttenhager 23 nests in 2019 dropped to eight in 2020. There are now fewer there than at Beddington in 2013 so I think we can see where this is headed. Such a shame as they are such smart little birds. This is likely to be the last one I see.

Elsewhere the Wryneck was a no-show, although it would not surprise me if it was still around, also hiding from me, but all of yesterdays Wheatears and Whinchats had stuck around. One of the Wheatears was particularly friendly and allowed a close, if muddy approach. The Whinchats stayed within the confines of the Skylark enclosure for the most part, and were thus perpetually out of range. The Skylark fence is fantastic and was a long time coming, but the Corporation of London isn't really playing ball with the agreed dates, or at least the fencing season does not seem to tally with the breeding season previously displayed on the signage. I'd quite like to be able to get in there now that breeding is over, maybe that is where the Wryneck is hanging out?

A distant Whinchat

The Green mile

I will freely admit it, I had given up. There was no hope, none. No hope that we would ever get a fence to protect the closest breeding Skylarks to central London. I am not a great campaigner, and I have watched the Skylark numbers gradually dwindle to next to nothing for as long as I have lived here. I have berated dog walkers and been abused by dog walkers. I have I have talked about the birds to people, I have written to the landowner, I have complained, I have blogged. Nothing. But others have more fortitude. Others have succeeded where I could not - mega kudos to Tim and the rest of the WREN Group. And so last week a work party appeared on Wanstead Flats with several hundred wooden posts and a vast reel of latticework fencing.

I had heard that it was happening of course, but nothing could have prepared me for the reality. A green wall of happiness stretching to the far horizon. I exaggerate as usual, but this is a serious bit of fencing and a large amount of the Skylark breeding area has been fully enclosed. The main path remains open, but either side of it in the prime habitat has been fenced off, paths and all. 

As I approached the fabled barrier yesterday I could hear the birds singing. At the fence itself the first bird I laid eyes on was a Skylark, pottering around unconcernedly about six feet away, there is no way I can adequately express my joy. We think there are three singing birds. A far cry from the numbers there once were but they are still here, against all the odds. Whether this number is sufficient to allow a recovery I have no way of knowing, the pessimist in me says not, but there is always hope. Members of the WREN Group are out there every day, voluntarily patrolling the fence, performing outreach with the local community. There are signs, there are leaflets. So far so good.

The barrier is temporary. It will go up each March and be taken down again in August. The posts are permanent.

Most people simply never thought about it and they probably don't think about it now. The new fence is neither here nor there, they just walk where it guides them, nothing has really changed. Some knew of course, said they never saw the signs. Indeed some brazenly said they had seen them and didn't care. Doubtless they don't much like the fence, but equally they cannot ignore it and that is all that matters. Hopefully they will soon forget about it, their dogs will crap alongside it rather then inside it, and the birds will be left in peace.

There is the unpleasant possibly that the more militant amongst them are seriously put out. I would not put it past the sort of people who will smash a local school child's drawing of a skylark to the ground to have a pop at the fence. During my walks around it I have already found two spots in which the guide ropes appear to have been slashed with a sharp implement and no doubt the worst is still to come. Repair parties are standing by with materials. It will be a battle of wills, but the longer the barrier can be fully maintained the better chance the birds will have. 

EDIT - this is now believed to be Rat damage, possibly as a result of our numerous rodent buddies looking for nest-lining material.

Eastern visitor, record equalled, pixel peeping

It has been a mixed weekend but on the whole a positive one. The big news is that Rob discovered a Blythi-type Lesser Whitethroat in the brooms this morning. It was initially rather a skulker, but once it had stopped raining it showed rather better, staying faithful to just a small area all day allowing most patch-workers to connect. It's a bird a number of us are familiar with having seen them on Shetland and elsewhere, and several weeks later than our latest ever Lesser Whitethroat was always likely to be an eastern bird. The colouration, the way the nape merges with the head, lack of distinct mask and above all clean white outer tail feathers all point to Blythi, and even better we have managed to collect some poo which is currently (and to Mrs L's disurst) sitting in my fridge awaiting shipping to Aberdeen.

Also late was a Wheatear on Saturday, our latest ever by over a week, and whilst we were all expecting it to be a Greenland type actually it seemed bog standard. The two other pieces of news from Saturday were firstly the happy discovery of a Jack Snipe on Angel, which takes me to 118 for the year and as mentioned previously equals my best ever patch year. Can I get one more? Or more ideally two more for a nice round 120? There are still two months to go so it is all to play for. Secondly, and for me less happily, the first Corn Bunting for about 2000 years briefly graced the patch on the same morning, but was somewhat inattentively dismissed by all who saw it and the news of a potentially interesting bird did not really make it out. Decent photos later surfaced from a non-birder, which whilst initially confusing (to me and several others) did eventually land on juvvy Corn Bunting as the only possibility. I was on the spot and no doubt briefly saw the bird in question flick across the path (indeed I saw the photos being taken yet did not bother to look!), but I rather suspect I'll be waiting quite a long time - read forever - to get it back. C'est la vie, from time to time this is just what happens in birding. I've missed patch birds before and no doubt will miss them again, but to be in the thick of the action and yet be oblivious to it is a new one for me I confess. Oops!

In more positive news I took the new camera body out for a play both today and yesterday. In summary the image quality seems very good indeed, but in actual use I find it fiddly and far less intuitive than my older body. In particular precise focusing seems harder to achieve, especially in low light, and its larger focus points snap in much more slowly. It is also far less clear when I am locked on, and the viewfinder is pretty pokey as well making it even harder. The buffer seems to fill up very quickly meaning the camera stops working right when I want it to be going and going, and the lack of vertical grip makes portrait images cumbersome to say the least. I realise this is a bit of a whinge about what is in reality a great bit of kit, and indeed in many situations it is great. Something big, close and unobstructed for instance - just put it on all 45 focus points and fire away, the results will be pretty impressive. But for a messy situation like the Lesser Whitethoat I wished for the pro body more than once and wondered what I was doing without it. I will persevere though. I am enjoying the substantial weight saving especially when combined with the lightweight 400mm f5.6 lens, and it seems that if I try hard I can get a decent shot with that combo however I am already getting frustrated that it is not the equal of the 1DX in so many ways. Then again neither should it be when you think about it, and basically I am a fool for thinking I might be able to get away with it 100% of the time. 

The Mistle Thrush above was taken with the 400mm, and the reason it is so sharp is because the bird was one of those unflushable types. I had noticed a lady jog right past it without it batting an eyelid, so I figured I was probably 'in' and so it proved to be. Everything else below I took with the 500mm, some of it with the 1.4x converter attached. The 1DX is a full frame camera whereas the 80D has a 1.6x magnification factor - this is a night and day difference and birds are comparatively huge in the frame! That level of magnification also means it is a lot harder to get a sharp photo, and I am already thinking that the monopod will be needed during the winter months which of course completely eliminates all weight savings..... I know, moan moan moan. Of course the single biggest advantage this new body has is that I am carrying and using a camera rather than leaving it at home. Once again I'm enjoying the unique challenges of bird photography locally whereas only a short time ago I was basically finished with it. Look, I even took a photo of a Gull!

Stonechat set

The number of Stonechats has been building quite quickly on Wanstead Flats. The first returning bird arrived on the 12th September and the following day there may have been two. By September 22nd there were four, and just two days later Nick and I counted nine in a single group in the Brooms, six males and three females. This morning I pushed five west down the Ditch of Despair, and when at the very end they doubled back east. Proceeding to the VizMig point I almost immediately counted a further five birds, so surely different to the other ones. And now, tucked up at home out of the biting wind and editing photos, I am hearing that Nick has finally managed to drag his ass out of bed to count 13. A remarkable total. No doubt they are in transit to better wintering habitat, but we can be hopeful that perhaps one or two will choose to stay - last winter one stuck it out until early March.

Aside from the Stonechat glut it was fairly quiet on the migrant and prospective winterers front. A Reed Bunting looks to be back in and I had the Snipe again over on Fairground Flats, whilst overhead I only recorded three Siskin, a couple of Redpoll and a Grey Wagtail. Four Buzzards were seen, one of which picked up an escort of about 60 Crows for its troubles, and bird of the morning was a Short-eared Owl picked up distantly over the Brickpits which proceeded to give beautiful views to the assembled company on the main path as it flew south directly overhead. I had my camera with me for a change, ready for the storm-blown Arctic Skua that didn't in the event arrive, so here are a few photos.

Another SEO

Back in April a memorable balcony watch picked up my second ever garden Short-eared Owl. I was alerted to something going on by Gulls going a bit nuts, and managed to pick it up distantly over Wanstead Flats. I cannot remember if I took a photo or not, and I don't think there was any fanfare on here either. Yesterday it happened again, but this time via a tweet from Rose, a local wildlife enthusiast who spends a lot of time on Wanstead Flats looking at insects and plants. As such the tweet just said "Large Owl", but that was enough to see me jump up from my desk and start scanning. Sure enough, a SEO was earnestly flapping above the brooms, but unconvincingly, as if it wanted to stay. I lost it behind trees and Rose's next message said it had landed again, and as it was early enough that my daily meetings had not yet started I raced downstairs with my camera and headed out into the inclement weather which was getting worse by the minute. 

I was hopeful of photographing a perched owl, but as I approached Long Wood I realised this wasn't going to happen - the Owl was up again, this time with an aggrieved Crow in pursuit. As luck would have it it still appeared to be convinced that Wanstead Flats was the best place for it, and spent a few minutes circling around the area we call the Brick Pits. Standing on the top of the bank there I was able to take a few photos of it in the swirling rain - quite hard work in the strong gusts. The Crow ultimately proved too persistent though, and the Owl gave up and flew off east, or at least I think so, I was trying to tell people where it was and in typing the texts did the classic taking my eyes off it thing. So instead I took and sent this which I think neatly sums up how good autumn birding can be. Interestingly the Owl was still knocking around this morning, the first time I can remember one sticking locally, but an actual meeting meant I didn't see it.

Back home, more than a little damp, I dried off the camera and quickly got to work on the files - unsurprisingly they were pretty crude and required a lot of lightening and sharpening to get something acceptable, but actually the nasty conditions enhanced my enjoyment of seeing the bird and so I'm prepared to accept the compromise. It was my ninth SEO for the patch, and my third for the garden. I am pretty fortunate to live so close - not only can I often get big stuff that other people find from my windows, but as with the Flycatchers on Monday I can be out on the patch incredibly quickly if the need arises. 

A clean sweep

Yesterday I managed to condense autumn into a single day. Over the course of three brief birding sessions I managed to see all the commoner expected migrants. First up an early morning balcony sky-watch, then a mid-morning whistle-stop tour around the brooms on Wanstead Flats, and finally a mid-afternoon dash to the SSSI - there and back in fifteen minutes. My personal totals are a thing of great beauty, and in years to come looking back on August 24th 2020 will always elicit a smile.

3 Whinchat

3 Wheatear

2 Redstart

1 Pied Flycatcher

1 Spotted Flycatcher

1 Tree Pipit

2 Yellow Wagtail

8 Willow Warbler

1 Lesser Whitethroat

Other birders picked up a few more here and there - another Redstart, another Yellow Wag and two more Whinchat and Spotted Flycatchers, but when I look at my list I am once again reminded what an incomparable spot Wanstead Flats can be on a good day. Prof W, now a foreign correspondent, remarked that he too wished he lived by the coast, and he is not wrong. Remember for a minute that Wanstead Flats is not a remote headland or a shingle spit. Instead it straddles zones 2 & 3 of the London tube network, and it has no right to get so many passerine migrants and yet it does. It provokes feelings of jealousy in other London birders who can only marvel at why this should be. I always offer two alternative explanations.

1) The amazing skill, passion, dedication and diligence of all the local birders, by which I mean me.

or 

2) The fact that from the air at night Wanstead Flats must look like a fabulously inviting dark space in the middle of the blazing sea of light that is east London. If you were a bird looking for a spot to dive into as your night flight comes to end where would you head for? This place literally shines out. Or doesn't, if you see what I mean.

Number two strikes me as altogether more likely, although you cannot rule out the fact that the coverage here is excellent, particularly from certain individuals, by which I definitely don't mean me.

So that was my birding day and I am dead chuffed. The longest session was the early morning one, starting at 5.45am out on the balcony. This delivered the (calling) Pipit and the two Wagtails, all of which I also saw. The Chats were all in the brooms, and the Flycatchers and Warblers were all in the SSSI which saw somewhat of an emergency visit later on when I realised that a full house was on the cards. I didn't have a camera for any of it, no time, and the freedom of birding without being fully laden is something I find myself enjoying more and more. But of course all blog posts are enhanced by a photo, so this is the most recent burnt area two weeks after the fire that I wrote about here, and as you can see it is doing quite nicely - the deluge last week has accelerated the recovery to the extent it looks really quite green already. Lovely stuff. And even more lovely was that it contained two of the three Wheatears.

 

Another fire on Wanstead Flats

A bonus post I'm afraid, two in a day. The reason is that there has been another fire on Wanstead Flats, almost exactly two years after the very large grass fire in 2018. Thankfully this appears to be a lot smaller, but the tale is a familiar one. It was around lunchtime and I was in the garden hanging up the washing when I started to smell smoke. Then the kids playing a few doors down commented that it was getting foggy (bless them), and then as my garden started to fill with smoke it was the mad rush inside to try and close all the door and windows on this 30 degree day.

Tinder dry

I ventured out after work to see the damage for myself. It has been on the cards for a while, just yesterday I was saying to some of the others how dry it was and how we had been lucky to not have any major fires. Well we spoke too soon. The area is at the south of the acid grasslands, near Centre Road car park and south copse. It's big, but not catastrophically so, and as far as I am aware there were no Skylark attempting to breed there. Nonetheless it is another eyesore that will take a while to recover, and perhaps result in more drastic fire-prevention measures such as clearance to make fire breaks

The area impacted today in red, versus the fire in July 2018

There were still four or five appliances on site at around 5.30pm, with crews continuing to damp down parts of it which were still smoking. As I left the house Nick reported a new fire south of the original location, and as I got home I could hear more sirens going off and another large plume of smoke rising. The possibility of this not being an unfortunate disposable BBQ accident remains, a thrill-seeking arsonist playing cat and mouse with the fire brigade perhaps. Let's hope that isn't the case, but regardless, as long as the weather stays like this and as long as people continue to treat our local green spaces like gigantic rubbish dumps this is always a likely outcome. 

I take heart from the fact that last time this happened the regeneration was remarkably rapid all things considered, and in matter of weeks green started to emerge through the brown and black. The final photo is what one of the worst hit areas looks like now, two years on. Had you not known what it was like before, with thick broom four feet tall and loads of heather, you would never have thought that there had been a fire at all. For now though the Crows are picking through it for chargrilled morsels of unlucky invertebrates, and we have another acrid black scar on the patch.

Foxed again

Another day, another dawn. Another failed attempt at Little Owl. The sun at least did have the good grace to rise in a cloudless sky, and so I amused myself with that for a little while, as well with really quite a tame Fox that at one point tried to eat my monopod. If I can get it accustomed to me then I might be able to get some quite nice images in the early mornings. Always good to have a project to work on.