Officially autumn

I think of September as autumn and not summer. Birds do too, although for them the return journey often starts in July. It has been a great summer, there are lots of detractors but I for one love the warmth. The vast majority of my plants revel in hot weather, and it is also ideal for drinking Rosé. Less ideal for what passes for grass here at Chateau L, and I expect that life is pretty tough for many of the birds I so enjoy. One species of something loses out, another steps in. I had my best ever growing season in terms of my plants putting out new leaves, I saw far fewer breeding Whitethroat. These two things probably have some measure of correlation. Nothing is ever perfect but this is the beauty of having lots of different hobbies. One fades, another gains in prominence.

As summer has waned plants have taken more of a back seat and birding has come back to the fore. I've been out quite a lot and a number of the expected migrants have fallen. I actually found Tree Pipit on the same day I published my last post on local birding, but I'd written it a couple of days earlier when in full unstoppable flow and set it up to go live a bit later. A week or so after that I woke up in the night, full of Syrah, to hear a very vocal Tawny Owl somewhere in the neighbourhood. I've been saving that one. And then more recently than that, this weekend I managed to connect with the Pied Flycatcher found earlier in the week by Nick who is unconstrained by commuting and offices. All going according to plan in other words, though I think I might have been in Germany when Tony found a Sedge Warbler. Getting a little late for those though I did have one last week in Fife so maybe there is still time. The good news is that the weather is now more unsettled, and that means that birds may get dropped in. I am here for a while now and hope to cash in, though not at the expense of getting soaked.

Onwards and upwards. 104. Average is what I am all about.

A Wanstead Pied Flycatcher from yesteryear (2015)

What is average anyway?

Regular readers (Hi Alan, hi Seth!) will know that I love a list and a stat. A couple of the last entries here have contained a nice round stat, with a Fife patch and my garden both getting their 100th bird. A long time coming. This post also concerns 100, albeit in a more regular way, and the keen-eyed (unsure if this is Seth or Alan) will notice that this is also my 100th post this year. 

Yes, somehow I have engineered things such that my patch-year list has gone over 100 at the precise moment that I tap out my 100th post, and shortly after Letham Pools and the gardens at Chateau L have also reached 100. Timing is everything.

About half of the time I would reach 100 before August, one year I even managed it in April. As you would expect I keep stats on this kind of thing. Love a list, love a stat. So one of my recreational spreadsheets shows that since I started tracking this stuff my patch average by the end of July is only 99. Only once at that end of August does that average rise to 103, and in fact such is the joy of numbers that if I reach 103 in the next week or so then the average will increase to 104. If I reach my average I remain below average? A bit unfair.

Anyhow, the 100th bird this year was a Spotted Flycatcher in one of the burnt bits on Wanstead Flats. It was followed almost immediately by a Common Redstart in the same place. Whilst it's sad that the patch looks like the interior of a BBQ it does seem to draw in the birds, all of which seem to shine out in constrast to their charcoal background.

There are more birds to come. It is Tree Pipit season for starters, and I would expect Pied Flycatcher too. I need to get my skates on if I'm to see a Common Tern though, it may already be too late - they tend to visit the Park sporadically on feeding trips and the need for those may be diminishing or finished. Other targets include Sedge Warbler which I missed in the spring, and I suppose that one mustn't completely discount Wryneck or Short-eared Owl, both of which have appeared towards the end of August in years gone by. And then of course there is all the winter stuff which I missed earlier in the year due to motivational struggles. Fieldfare...

Here's one I prepared earlier

The power of the pixel

This Sunday morning just gone I did not go out on the patch as I would normally do. I was still a little frazzled from the seawatching at Sheringham and a rather difficult drive home; a slower start was warranted. It was a lovely morning. A bit of a breeze still, the remnants of Saturday's storm, but blue skies and weak sunshine were the order of the day. As I contemplated the whether the previous day had been a waste of time or a fun experience I became aware of a bird a fair way to my right and flying away. A Gull I thought, no wonder it got past me. I squinted at it again and put my bins up. Yep, definitely a Gu.... I ran for the camera which stupidly was still in the far corner of the room. The direct route took me over my discarded nocmig equipment, around a small gaggle of tropical Araucaria plants and some Aloe seeds I have been germinating, how I did not send them flying in all directions I do not know.

Camera in hand I pushed the battery back in and closed the latch (some kind of fault discharges it if left in) as I hopped my way back to the door. Back on the balcony I raised the camera and.... nothing. Camera down, bins up and it is still going, a mere dot. Last chance! Camera back up, I focused on the most distant thing I could find and then manually resolved the dot in the viewfinder and pressed the shutter. Was it enough?

What had caused me to run was what I felt was an usually large block of white on the rear of the bird. White that seemed even at a distance to run in a line up the back of the bird, rather than a rump or tail patch. At this stage it had been flying directly away from me, but surely on that feature alone it had to be a wader - a Whimbrel or a Curlew perhaps? Would my photos of a distant dot show anything? My camera is pretty old these days. It came out in 2012 and things have moved on hugely in the intervening years - they don't even make SLRs with sensors so puny any more. But what pixels there are are good ones, and though it may not be the latest and greatest any longer rarely has it taken a photo I have been more pleased with.

Check this out.

Yes, a true birder's photo. One that requires a red arrow to actually show where the bird is lest viewers confuse it with a piece of fluff or something. But modern cameras are remarkable things. I've measured what area of sensor is covered by feathers and that dot is roughly 54 x 42 pixels - 2,268 in total. That is just 0.013% of my sensor. But those pixels are enough. Look!

By a stroke of good fortune the bird banked to the right just as I took the photos and just before it was lost from view. It is clearly 2000 pixels of Curlew - not sure how many of those are bill but no Whimbrel would have a conk that long.

Curlew is not a patch tick. In 2013 I was lucky enough to have two birds fly over in very misty conditions out on Wanstead Flats whilst in the company of Dan Dan the Wader Man, who had presumably released them shortly beforehand from his magic satchel that over the course of a few years contributed numerous excellent records of waders and ducks to the patch list. But it is a garden tick, and a bloody good one too as waders are just so hard here. We associate them with crappy weather but I was out on my balcony under blue skies which makes this even stranger. That said this is but one London Curlew of several by the sounds of things - the previous day a bird was seen flying over north London, and the following day over a metropolitan Essex patch. And at Rainham yesterday morning I observed three Curlew fly straight up the middle of the Thames, ignoring all offers of RSPB mud and continuing west without stopping. Where did they end up I wonder? 

Anyhow, let's hear it for megapixels.

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.

 

Early mornings

I am still finding for the most part that early mornings are best for visits to Wanstead Flats - for many different reasons, although the birdy reasons are diminishing rapidly. A few Whitethroats and Chiffs are still gamely singing, but it is mostly the feeding season now and whilst I am sure there are lots of birds around, hearing them and finding them is another matter entirely. It feels quiet, and I expect that my visits there will peter out very shortly. 

As well as the lack of birdy activity and passage being more or less over, there is another obvious reason for abandoning early morning visits. Sleep. First light these days is at a pretty horrendous time of day. I need to get up before 4.30am in order to be sure of seeing the sunrise, and that is not easy. In fact it is very hard, and comes with the significant risk of waking up other residents of Chateau L. And when one of those residents breathes fire....

Another reason is that I've started putting the moth trap out again, and that needs to be looked at first thing before it warms up. Not at the crack of dawn, but the sun is quite high in the sky even by 7am so I mustn't leave it too long. By the time I have done that I find that I'm a bit peckish and require coffee and so on, and once I've dealt with those basic needs the best period has passed and I might as well get on with my day at home. Plants are best watered in the cool of the morning, vents and windows can be opened to let some fresh air in, and I find I can easily dispense with a couple of hours simply pottering around doing various jobs. So long Wanstead Flats...

But on the off chance that I do manage it, the following sort of scene may await me, and it can be absolutely breathtaking if the conditions are right. And looking at the forecast there are quite a few days coming up which could be like this. It would be a shame to pass these up don't you think?

Wanstead Bird Reports

Every year we release a patch bird report, and the most recent one - 2018 - is now out. You can click on the image below to access it and I would encourage you to do so. In fact please do so - the effort that has gone into this, and all the others, which can be found here merit their wider circulation. It works well on a standard widescreen monitor.

I am not sure how many local patches do this but it's a nice way to round up the year and they're fun documents to go back and read during the quiet times. In recent years Nick has been putting them together, how he finds the time I have no idea. Oh, wait, yes I do! Nonetheless, it is a mammoth effort that takes him days and days, and they deserve to be seen by more people. As this year is the tenth one, a few of the local patchworkers have contributed to a "Top ten moments of the last ten years", and reading those gives a real sense of the type of birding we get here - it is not all about rarities! That said, this was the Rustic Bunting year, a real mega anywhere, and so that features on more than a few of the top tens.

This was the year of the "Beast from the East" and so in this report there is a small feature on Lapwings. I remember that period well and on one of the days I worked from home. Between bouts of work I picked up 275 Lapwing heading west over my garden and away from the brutal weather. Given I can go for a full year and see none, it was a quite incredible spectacle. There is also a short piece on Gull ringing recoveries - Tony is a big ring afficionado and makes a big effort to record and track down all that he sees. Jubilee Pond is probably the best place to read rings - you are close to the birds and they perch on the low wooden fences on the islands allowing for good visibility.

The bulk of the report is the day by day sightings - these are basically pulled from the ELBF feed that Howard V painstaking compiles, and then combined with a short and often light-hearted summary that describes the month as a whole. It is liberally illustrated by all of us, and I think this is what makes it such a fun read - you can scroll down and relive the year day by day! If this view is not your kind of thing, then there is also the annual systematic list, and this is where the real detail lies. It is put together to sit alongside the historical records page on the Wanstead Birding Blog. This for me is where the real interest lies - we have status, records by month and year, tables, firsts and last dates for common migrants, and all set against photos taken by local birders. As it is a local patch report put together by local birders, as opposed to something more formal and official describing a much larger area, certain what some may call 'liberties' have been taken that some people may not agree with, mainly the inclusion of non-accepted rarities. Rarities in any context are always thorny issues, and indeed even locally we don't necessarily all agree with the approach, but this is where we currently are and I would urge readers not to get all het up about it and just to read the report as an insight into local birding on one of London's best patches. You cannot fail to get a feel for where we all spend a vast amount of time, and if it encourages more people to get out and enjoy local birding then so much the better. I've certainly noticed more and more people out with binoculars in recent years - a far cry from when I was just wandering around on my own!

Anyway, enjoy, and if you have any comments then please do let us have them via the usual means.

January Accumulation

In a break from tradition this post is going to be about birds. It is January, and this means local birding is exciting again. Kind of. Like many birders who have local patches, for me the start of the new year heralds the start of new year list - I can happily wander around seeing exactly the same birds that I see every year. The excitement is palpable, the competition has started again! 

It is all pointless. Whether I have seen 50 birds, 60, or even 70 by the end of January is completely irrelevant. These are the birds that I will see no matter what, I would have to be blind to miss them. But somehow this does not stop me seeking out the more obscure bits of the Park to find a Siskin, or to spend inordinate amounts of time in Bush Wood in search of Treecreeper. I am a fool, but a happy one.

Last weekend I had no blogging urges to speak off, so this year's fine start has gone unrecorded in internetland. However towards the top of this page you will see a shiny new link to "Wanstead 2019" which details each and every magnificent completely expected and regular sighting so far. Last weekend Tony and I mopped up most of what was available on the Flats. There were of course notable exceptions - could we find a Skylark or Stonechat? No we could not. We also paid our annual visit to Bush Wood, where we found Nuthatch and Firecrest in short order, but of Treecreeper there was no sign. We then took a quick spin around the Park, adding Teal, Little Egret and Green Woodpecker. Adding to the birds I'd seen out of the window on the New Year's Day, I ended that first proper outing on 54 species which is decidedly average - sometimes I get more than that on the first day. 

I am not as keen as I once was, in fact some may describe me as more than a little jaded - by many things, not just birding. However a week at work tends to help build up the necessary level of enthusiasm to get out there, for fresh air if nothing else. So this morning I was up nice and early and found myself in Bush Wood for the second time this year. It will also be the last time, as happily I found the missing Treecreeper quite quickly near the dried up pond. In fact I found two, which bodes well for their continued presence in our area. Flush with early success I made my way over to Chalet Wood. This proved the perfect comedown, with zero sign of the Lesser Spotted Woodpecker and ten trillion out of control dogs running amok whilst their owners emitted a variety of pathetic and useless cries which were roundly ignored. Also sighted on my tour were a Water Rail on Shoulder of Mutton, a pleasing 51 Teal on Heronry plus a fly-by Kingfisher, 8+ Siskin in the Dell, and a Great Crested Grebe on Perch. If you are interested in knowing where all these locations are, the map is here. If you are not that's fine too.

This places me on 61 for the year. I would describe this as 'getting there'. Significant misses so far include Pochard, Kestrel and Fieldfare, as well as the birds mentioned above. The thrill of seeking these out cannot be understat.....

Vista management in the Park. This used to be a nice tangle that birds could rest up in, safe and out of sight. Maybe one day the Corporation of London will plant something rather than just chopping it all down?

A tale of two lists

Now that I have given up UK listing and year-listing (a brief flirtation, two or three years to get it out of my system) only a few lists now remain. I still have a passing interest in London, and a little bit of me still wants to see birds in Essex, but actually all I currently fussed about is Wanstead. The patch. I've now lived here for about 14 years, and I reckon I've been birding the place seriously for about nine of those.

How do I define seriously? Well, I have some statistics.....

I moved here in 2004. At that time a bird list was a completely unknown concept for me, and it wasn't until about 2008 that I started to record what I saw with any regularity. My earlist year list for the patch shows that I saw just 83 species, but back then that was an extremely pleasing result as the up until 2007 I had seen just 70 species ever. By the end of 2009 I had lifted this to 105, of which 102 were in that year alone. I was hooked. 

Gradually the year totals grew, as did my overall patch list. 2010 saw me record 108 species and boost my patch list to 120. A further seven in 2011 and five in both 2012 and 2013 put me on 137 with some great patch birds like Wryneck, Stone Curlew and Osprey. 2014 was a slower year with just two new birds added, but normal service was resumed in 2015 with a further five including a quite stunning Red-legged Partridge. 2016 added three more, including Ortolan Bunting and Great Grey Shrike - quality needs to be eked out. The great Hawfinch invasion of 2017 provided that year's only tick leaving me on 148, and 2018 as I am sure I have already said has been mind-bendingly good. 150 was swept aside with what amounts almost with disdain (actually I went weak at the knees, as related here)

This year is now the tenth in which I've seen over 100 and I once reached the dizzy heights of 118. It has been a slow and mostly steady climb, and a truly dedicated blogger would have made a graph. 

But there is another.....

In 2009, almost exactly two months after I started this blog I lost my job. I'd like to think the two are not connected. Whilst I didn't lose interest in Wanstead, indeed I birded it more than ever previously, I had the time to go further afield. Rainham Marshes. With children in tow I appeared at this riverside site quite frequently and gradually established myself with the local birders. Andy, Phil, Dave, Howard and others would kindly keep me updated and it was not at all unusual if I went several times a week, often on a twitch of sorts. In two years I went from 141 to 183, including such London gems as Montagu's Harrier, Snow Bunting, Merlin, Gannet and Eider. Those two years boosted my London list massively, but then along came the need to go back to work and everything slowed to a crawl once again. In the eight years since then I've added just 13. It does of course get progressively harder, but from the start of 2014 to the end of 2015 I added none at all! 

I know all this because I have kept records for Rainham in a similar fashion to my home patch. I won't bore you with them except to say that I am back in the game and a significant milestone that I really ought to have crossed many years ago is now in my sights. Last year I moved quite quickly for Quail, Black-winged Stilt and a Common Crane, and this year Marsh Sandpiper and Rough-legged Buzzard were snaffled at short notice. This leaves me on 196. I know what you are thinking.

Tantalising.

I agree, and that is why last Sunday morning shortly after first light I was on the sea wall at Rainham listening out for Siskin. Whilst I may have seen close to 200 species at the site, there are a few embarrassing blanks on my list. Others are Firecrest, Bullfinch and Raven. There are enough seasonal possibilities that could occur and indeed regularly do occur that I decided now would be a good time to really put a bit of effort in, spend a bit more time there.

But of course this comes with risks.....

I expect you can see where I am going with this.

Yes, whilst I was on the river wall at Rainham straining my ears for non-existent Siskin, Nick was happily inking in a pair of Cattle Egrets flying over Wanstead Flats, the first for donkeys years. My first genuine non-twitching attempt to add birds to this other patch list and not only do I draw a complete blank but I miss a mega back on home turf. There is probably a lesson here. 

Next weekend I'm going to Florida.

Before the rain set in

The forecast was nearly right I suppose, it has mostly been a miserable day. However the rain did hold off until about lunch time, after which it came down in rods and sent everyone scurrying for home, me included. But this meant that I did get most of the morning out on Wanstead Flats, and whilst it was very quiet it also wasn't indoors at a desk, so in that sense it was truly excellent. In the first few hours I think I saw more birders than birds, each of us out and hoping for a sign of spring. A sign with a white backside....

There were none. In fact barring a few Chiffchaff there were precisely zero signs of spring, and my red hat stayed firmly on my head as it felt more like winter for most of the time. Early morning sunshine on the Flats was gradually replaced by a build up of cloud and a biting wind, and at this point I bade farewell to Nick, and previously also Bob, Marco and Rob, and Tim and I carried on to the Park in the vain hope that the weather front might drop a few hirundines in. I didn't. However we did meet up with Rob again in the Old Sewage Works, and were pleased to find the Hawfinch in roughly the same spot as he had seen it half an hour previously. This was a sub-patch tick for me, and a bird (I assume the same individual) that I had dipped a couple of times already this year. I split my Wanstead patch into four areas - Wanstead Flats, Wanstead Park, Bush Wood and my back garden. Whilst Wanstead Flats clearly leads the pack on 139 (out of 149) simply by virtue of birding it more often than any of the other areas, the Park continues to improve and the Hawfinch was my 109th bird there, following hot on the heels of the Dunlin delivered by the Beast from the East, and the Great White Egret delivered by, errr, Uber. My garden lags behind on 82, and Bush Wood is simply pathetic at 43. 

I didn't carry a camera today due to the impending downpour, but tomorrow I may do so as tomorrow marks the start of the official breeding season, where we vainly try and keep the long grass clear of incursions. The way today went does not bode well. One lady had seven dogs. Seven! A man had five. A jogger went right through the middle with her bouncy dog pretty much doing loop the loops in the breeding area. The birds have little chance. But wait, there are signs!

Well yes there are, but they do not apply to dog walkers. In fact no rules apply to dog walkers, they can do whatever they like. Including ripping the signs down and stamping on them as they are so offensive. By offensive I mean suggesting that they keep their pets on a lead from 31st March to 31st August. I mean that is just bound to tip a dog walker over the edge isn't it? Anyway, here is one of the signs that is still up - they were made by a local school and were placed earlier this year. I don't expect this one will last, Nick discovered two of them smashed to bits on the ground yesterday. Just how small-minded you have to be to do something like that is really hard to fathom. 

So from tomorrow I will start talking to dog owners who are ignoring the signs, and other local birders will be doing so as well. I don't know how long I will last - I mentioned in an earlier post I am not really up for conflict, and in my many years of trying to make dog walkers take notice I can tell you that it does not really matter how you approach the subject. Softly softly or straight to the point, perhaps even rudely straight to the point, it makes no difference. Not a single person has ever said they are sorry and they did not know. To a man/woman, they are doing nothing wrong and they can go where they like. Their dog does not chase birds, their dog is a nice dog. Or they just tell me where to go. Or threaten me. I've enjoyed that edgy feeling a few times in the past with particularly aggressive owners. I suppose I could do the whole name and shame thing, take pictures, post them up etc etc. I've think I've done that once or twice in the past, but the more I see of social media the less I think that it is a good contribution. And it's not as if the land-owner will act on any photos anyway. No, I do not want to stoop to the base baying for blood level that is frequently present, we all need to move away from that. I will probably just try and have a quiet word and be told to get stuffed (or worse) for my troubles. Welcome to modern Britain. It's every man for himself.

The inevitable

Wouldn't it be nice to wander round unencumbered by a camera I said to myself this morning. Wouldn't it be lovely to have no excess weight to lug around. Just me and my bins, back to basics. I rarely get decent opportunities on the Flats anyway, too busy. I'll just leave the whole lot at home, wonderful. I don't know if any of you readers who are also keen on photography feel the same way, but whilst I feel rather 'naked' without my camera I also feel liberated - it comes with being able to be a birder as well, a birder first probably.

And it was rather nice early on as I trotted around my usual circuit. Quiet and uneventful, but extremely pleasant, as the sun rose a low mist formed across the area. I met Tony by Alex, nothing doing, and together we headed back to the VizMig point. A pair of Little Owls caught his attention in one of the copses, the first time I've set eyes on them this year having had a "heard only" experience during the summer. They flew up from the ground and into the canopy, not to be seen again, but we think we now know where the nest hole might be.

Over to the usual area by the brooms for a bit of a chat and Bob spots a distant Chaffinch. In fact the Hawthorn it is in is alive, three Chiffchaff, various Tits and also a spanking male Chaffinch Common Redstart! You can never get that close to Redstarts here, and there is always a lot of foliage etc, I was perfectly happy not to have a camera. Meanwhile Bob and Tony advance on the tree. And get closer. And closer. And closer. The Redstart pops up on a bare branch right in front of them, sits stock still and puffs out its chest. A torrent of shutter abuse follows, whereupon they gather around Tony's camera and high-five each other. Then Bob zooms up his and they exchange hugs and punch the air. They are amongst the best Redstart photos I think I have ever seen! Reluctantly, and with my tail firmly between my legs, I head home to dig out my lens. Why does this always happen?

It was still there when I got back about a quarter of an hour later, and meanwhile James had been having his fill. I must say it was a friendly little thing, but that soft morning light had rather disappeared. My best efforts are below, and whilst I'm pleased, I am nonetheless left ruing my early morning decision to travel light as the opportunity earlier on was simply golden. Nevermind, it was a little beauty and I don't think I've seen one better, here or anywhere else, and I hadn't expected to see one again this year so rather a treat. Other bird highlights were 50 or so Swallow, a couple of three species of Wagtail, and some good Meadow Pipit action.

This final image is actually a composite of two images with some funky leaf work, inspired by one of my fellow patch-workers!

The Great British Airways Red Kite Bonanza

Today I spent a lot of time in the garden staring skywards. British Airways kindly made it possible for me to be at home this bank holiday weekend rather than abroad as originally planned, which meant I was able to engage in one last push for treble figures before I shut up shop for the summer and join the odonata-loving hoards. 

So after I had mowed the lawn and weeded a couple of flower beds I plonked myself in a garden chair for some well earned relaxation and started to read my phone about the continuing chaos at Heathrow that I had thankfully only minimally got caught up in yesterday. Who needs Florida anyway?  Red Kite used to be a difficult bird here, although in late March and early April local birders' chances increase as birds start to move around a bit. As with Peregrine I missed all the early action, but I was confident that it would come good. All it needed was a bit of monumental IT failure karma.

And so five minutes after I had sat down in my chair I espied three very distant and high dots. Two were Buzzards and the third was a Gull. Whilst I was unsuccessfully trying to alert Bob to the former, a nearer bird caught my eye....

I raced upstairs, grabbed my camera from my as-yet unpacked hand-luggage and dashed back downstairs again to find the bird still on view. Most satisfying, and most importantly has allowed me to notch up three figures on the patch before June. Without this bird today I was probably looking at Spotted Flycatcher in August for #100. Anyway, here it is. I've gone for the more authentic "back of camera" approach as the photo is so rubbish.

After social media-ing this bird to the max I settled back down in my chair, content in a good job done. Basking. About 50 minutes later, ever alert, blow me if another one didn't sail across the sky. Given it was heading the opposite direction to the first, I assumed it must be the same bird coming back, but the photo tells a different story. This bird has a less ragged tail, and appears to also have a better set of wings, as well as two distinct notches in P7 and one in P8 that the first bird doesn't have. It was also a lot lower which resulted in a photograph that was inexplicably equally as naff, thus:

A bit more pottering in the greenhouse, a spot of lunch and some more sitting, all accompanied by the inner glow which only comes from the realisation that in 13 years of skywatching in the garden, including two years of domestic godliness, I'd only ever seen two Red Kites and had now doubled that number in under an hour.

However.....

I had joked online about the hat-trick being 'on' without really believing it, so when this flew over about two hours later I was genuinely surprised. Inspecting the photo it looks to me like this is a third bird, and one that is progressively in finer nick than the first two. Look at the tail on that! 

And so despite having my holiday plans trashed by corporate ineptitude that borders on gross negligence, I reckon I can say have had a pretty decent day, unlike many people still gamely trying to go on holiday (my trip was only four days, I've simply binned it). Three Red Kites over the same small patch of airspace in one day is superb, and I can head into the summer period pleased with a good job done.

A walk to work

For some reason I was up at 5.30 this morning so I used it as an excuse to go birding on the way to work. A stiff and cold breeze greeted me outside the front door, but it was bright and sunny. I set off in high spirits for the Park. Going directly to work is almost always in low spirits, going birding before work is a great antidote even if you ultimately end up in the same place. Reservoir Wood was alive, and I had it all to myself. Within the wood itself were Dunnock, Blackcap, Blackbird, Robin, Wren and Great Tit, all singing their hearts out. To my left a Great Spotted Woodpecker “kek’d”, and as I reached the scrubbier margins the first Chiffchaffs made themselves known, not forgetting Song Thrush phrases from every point of the compass. Over at the Shoulder of Mutton Pond a pair of Mute Swan drifted on the far side, but only a handful of Mallard now remain. Half a dozen Coot and two Moorhen, but the real interest was the Reed Warbler chuntering away in one of the corners. These birds have been regular patch breeders now for about the last four years – amazing that they or their descendents return to this small unremarkable pond half a world away. I’d missed the bird yesterday on my return from twitching the (expected) Cetti’s Warbler on the Roding, but I hadn’t been worried, I knew they would still be there whereas the Cetti’s was a little less certain.

A Jay bounded ahead of me as I skirted the southern edge of Heronry. It is a depressing sight at the moment, I do hope something gets done about it. The water is disappearing by the day, and the recently-exposed mud that had attracted the LRPs was now somewhat baked. Areas where the water disappeared some time ago now have that cracked appearance that you associate with African drought. Assuming all the water drains away, which surely it must, the landowner needs to take the opportunity to start from scratch – get a JCB (or four) in there to clear away the years of detritus – branches, the leaves of twenty autumns, rubbish and who knows what else, and once clear work out where the leaks are and repair them. And then restore the flow of water between the ponds which has clearly stopped. Only then can the healing and regeneration begin, but I have no idea what the plans are. Simply filling it up from the river or groundwater supplies would be dodging the problem, even if might then look better.

Anyhow, no waders on what mud there was, perhaps the Plovers were an abberation? A few motley Canada Geese and Mallards, a lone Moorhen picking its way across. More interest in the trees, where I heard my first Willow Warbler and Chaffinch of the day, as well as coinciding with a feeding flock of Long-tailed Tits, seems they are still at least partly communal in spring. Blackcaps simply everywhere, very heartening indeed, and just before I left a single House Martin, my first, scythed northwards - I am assuming a migrant rather than one of the resident birds that has recently returned to Brading Crescent.

Cutting through some of the residential streets I was soon on Wanstead Flats. This was quieter than I had hoped, but there was another Willow Warbler in West Long Wood, and a Mistle Thrush feeding on the playing fields, the first I have seen for a while. Cormorants and Canada Geese overhead, and of course the screeching of parakeets from every copse with an occasional sortie. Skylark was notably absent, but a few Meadow Pipits were in the grass.

Over at Alex were the first Greylags and a collection of Gulls nearby. I ignored them, I was birding. Little Grebe trilled, and Mute Swans were regularly scattered by the dominant pair, flying haplessly over to Jubilee where presumably the same thing happened before realighting on Alex to start the cycle again. Linnet overhead, Bob, and the first Greenfinches. A Green Woodpecker yaffled from the scrub, I later saw it in flight close to the Golden Fleece Pub. I picked out a distant Swallow heading north over Centre Copse, and then it was time to head for work. A pair of Sparrowhawk wheeled overhead clearly showing their size differential, hard to catch up with at the beginning of the year, I now see them on every outing. 41 species was the total for the walk, nothing overly remarkable but it makes for a positive start to the day that is well worth getting up a little earlier for. I won’t do it every day as it would become draining given everything else I have to do, but now and again it is really pleasant.

Year list moves on massively

Today I added a flyover Linnet, which takes me to the dizzy heights of 58. Where will it end?! The reason I didn't add anything else is that a) I am not too concerned by the current lack of Greenfinch, I am pretty sure I will get one and b) because I was too busy satisfying my creative urges. In marked contrast to yesterday, today was a glorious day. Clear, cold and crisp, I positively catapulted out of bed this morning in order to partake in it - my vague plan seems to be working as I really enjoyed it.

The first photograph I took was this. Nothing miraculous about it, but I just like the colours and the light was great. You wouldn't even think it was in Wanstead, more Colorado or some such place. No doubt the Corporation will cut it down soon - their management plan is somewhat one-dimensional. Raze.

Then I spent a bit of time mucking about at Jubilee Pond. Now as I explained last year, Jubilee Pond and its environs are rather grim. The omni-present alcoholic detritus has now been joined by a huge dead fish. However despite the obvious signs of despair, in terms of birds per square inch Jubilee probably places higher than any other place on the patch - it positively teems with life. Life looking for free handouts. This kind of life...

Yuck. As well as upwards of a trillion gulls, there are also several hundred thousand Canada Geese and possibly the same number of Coot. There is plenty on offer for them to fight over, and even with nothing to squabble over it all tends to kick off regardless. Here is a Coot heading quickly after another Coot. I have no idea what it had done, the basic problem was that it was there and it was another Coot. This means war.

As I am a proper birder I also recorded a ringed Black-headed Gull "2LBA", left leg, black on yellow. In due course I will tell you its life story, including the 24 miles it has travelled from Pitsea. I have a photo of course, but this post already has one too many Gull photos in it. So what would be better than a Gull? Well, anything obviously, but this being my blog I reckon a Chat is what it needs. 

Abandoning the morass I crossed the road to Cat & Dog Pond, where we have a wintering Stonechat. I met Tony, recovered from his hangover of the previous day and contentedly ticking off birds just as I had done the day before, and it wasn't long before I had the bird in my sights. Tony pottered off in the direction of Mipit squeaks and I started the stalk. I did not need to try very hard, when I had seen it yesterday I had felt it looked quite keen to have its photo taken and I'm pleased to say I was right. I followed it around for a bit and every now and then it popped on something minimal with a decent background and so I took a photo. I'm putting it out there as a putative Stejneger's as it appears nobody has a clue what they actually look like. Don't be put off by the warm tones, I'm sure it's fine.

Forgetting February

Just a quick update on a local rarity seen whilst out birding. Me. February somewhat passed me by, with half term holidays, a couple of other sorties, and daily news of the patch being absolutely dire. With time at a premium I did the sensible thing and went birding elsewhere. That’s not to say that on March 1st I rushed out the door keen and eager, of course not. Most of March was utterly terrible as well, and so it wasn’t until a few weeks in that I ventured out, tempted by news of the first LRPs and so on. Initially there appears to have been a westerly bias, with Dorset and Devon getting the vanguard, but gradually more and more sites on our side of country have been seeing their first migrants.

I’ve seen mine too, but it wasn’t the one I wanted. You all know what that is. Anyway, although that gem is still to come on Friday I spent a considerable portion of the day out on the patch cashing in on other things. Earlier in the week I had missed some Rooks, and somewhat disastrously a mega-for-London Hooded Crow. Work is the curse of the birding classes, or something like that. Anyhow, it was a bank holiday, I was here, and the weather was good enough for this fair-weather birder to be out. And it was good, in the Chiffchaff sense of good. Hmmm. I then missed Rooks again by going home for coffee and breakfast. And a nice long rest. But by mid morning I was raring to go again and so joined Nick on the side of the Alex for a spot of skywatching which almost immediately paid dividends with a stratospherically high Buzzard found by Nick. I found this very difficult to pick out, I think my month and a half of sitting in a darkened room processing a huge backlog of images has taken its toll on my outdoor vision. The next bird was altogether more satisfactory being a much lower Red Kite, which I picked up somewhere north of the Alex. It just appeared, not sure how – this is common when skywatching. One minute there is an empty sky, the next minute there is a bird in it, and you’re never quite sure how it managed to get there across the expanse of sky that you've been scanning. And then of course when we looked again after sending the obligatory twittergloat it had disappeared. Oh no, there it was, lower again and a bit further east. Oh but hang on, that’s a Buzzard. Where did that come from? And so where’s the Kite? And then when we looked again there were two Buzzards right next to each other, both of which then gained height and vanished within a matter of seconds.

All good in other words, with two year ticks in a couple of minutes to add to the earlier Chiffy. This latter and the Buzzard I would always expect to get, but Red Kite whilst increasing is never guaranteed. Last spring I missed them completely and had to wait until mid-May, which turned out to be my only sighting all year, so I’m pleased to have managed to connect in what must be the most likely period for Kites to go a-wandering. My three year ticks turned into four with with three Sand Martin that dropped in briefly, and then I had to go home and eat freshly baked Hot Cross Buns. Never easy.

Thirty seconds into the journey home I looked up at the sky and there was another Red Kite hanging in the breeze, tail twisting to maintain position. Where it had been immediately prior I cannot way, but Nick and I think there may be some kind of bird vortex above Wanstead Flats, which randomly spits out and sucks in avian interest for short periods of time. Sometimes we’re lucky enough to see it. What is on the other side of the vortex remains unknown, however we’re pretty sure it isn’t Walthamstow else we’d have had Osprey.

I'm leaving

This morning there were six or seven species of Gull on Wanstead Flats. I can only cope with about three at any one time, so I am leaving. Selling up. Moving. Not sure where to yet, but somewhere that is unattractive to Larids, like, errr. Actually I don't know, now that I think about it the bloody things are everywhere. For someone like me who is scared of Gulls and what they can do to you, the numbers now present and the interest that they are generating is very worrying. More worrying is that I started to take an interest, and this morning rather than stay cosy in bed I toddled off to the Alex looking for a rumoured Caspian Gull. I had thought I'd seen it last weekend in amongst the throngs on the football pitches, but sensibly closed my eyes and declared it all to be a bad dream. When I opened them a madman with a suitcase had scared them all away. Thank heavens for that, and I went and looked at some cardboard boxes instead to calm down.

All this week I've avoided looking but the constant reports have been nagging me because it is a year tick and if I see it I move one species closer to Bob and one step nearer to that coveted second place and a huge cash prize. There were two large Gulls on Alex when I got there, and handily the Caspian was one of them. I rather fancy that the other was a Yellow-legged Gull, but I don't want to get ahead of myself here as somebody will tell me it's just a Herring Gull. But that's the point really - they're all just flavours of Herring and I've been saying for ages that all Gulls should just be lumped. Gull. See, easy. Split into big and small if you're being really pedantic, but one supercline is where I think we're headed.

Gull

Now Caspian Gull is not a patch tick for me, I felt confident enough in one a few years ago to submit a description to the London rarities committee. When Bob first picked up the bird on Jubilee I was motivated to dust off the London Bird Report in question to remind myself of my previous triumph. Leafing through to the Gull section, I confidently read through the Caspo section looking for Wanstead and..... hang on a sec must have missed it. Essex. W....wait a damn minute! It's not there! This is the trouble with committees. Well, and with Gulls. Somehow my description must not have passed muster, absurd though that notion is. Gull. Big. White head. Dark eye. Long Beak. Long Legs. Sticky-out tummy. Wings. Faint aroma of rubbish. Accompanied by the photo I didn't take. Pah! This is why I hate Gulls, they're all basically identical and unless you're mentally unhinged and devote a significant portion of your life to them you don't stand a chance. 

Back to 2015 and admittedly this bird did look good, and I did have a camera this time so that particular demon can be laid to rest. The internet appears to agree that it is one, which is excellent news. Not because it is a rather good bird for here, or because it's a year tick, or even a real tick. But because it means I can stop looking at Gulls now and resume my search for birds that don't cause a gag reflex. 

A different perspective

I've popped this on the WansteadBirding blog too as it's a lot more topical, but here's a rare view of the patch from the air. I was on one of my ridiculously unnecessary flights back from Florida this week, and the plane out of City Airport banked right over Wanstead as it headed off towards Dublin. You could pick out almost every feature of the place, individual spots. As I looked out of the window I was listing them - Stone Curlew there and there, Lapland Bunting there, Slav there, Goosanders there there and there, White-fronted Goose there, and so and and so forth. I traced my normal route, I marveled at just quite how large it is and how we need a lot more coverage and that it's amazing we find anything at all. Now of course all this would be less meaningful without a photo but luckily I managed to get a snap out of the window with my tablet, and it has come out remarkably well.

Captain Cook discovers Wanstead

Yesterday was one of the most enjoyable days I can recall for a long time (PS, no birds...). It's Alistair Cook's benefit year, and as he's an Essex cricketer, and several of the Essex side came from the Wanstead Ranks, he brought the team over to Overton Drive for a morning of coaching the kids (my three included), a T20 match vs Wanstead in the afternoon, and then a gala dinner in the evening. We only attended the first two, but were there for something like eight hours - for a man of his stature to give up his Saturday and come out and inspire all these kids is simply phenomenal - and he was so nice too, so normal, no sign of the pressure he must be under. And hats off too to the Essex team that contained the likes of Bopara, Foster, Topley and Panesar, they were all brilliant with the children, and really that's what the day was all about. 

The match itself was won by Essex on almost the final ball, and it was perhaps the least competitive cricket I've ever seen, and all the more fun for it! One of the Wanstead guys had won an auction to keep wicket for Essex, and had a whale of a time. A ten year old kid came out and bowled an over at some point and won man-of-the-match for doing so, Kishen Velani (local boy done good, played for England under-19s) tonked Monty for four sixes in a row, and Cook himself was the victim of a fantastic one-handed catch out at deep mid-wicket.

Wanstead Cricket Club has been superb from the moment we joined it some years ago. It is made up pretty much entirely of volunteers that give up their time to coach the kids, and the whole setup and atmosphere is all you could wish from a local club, and we are fantastically lucky to have it on our doorstep. All three of ours go there every week, let's hope they stay interested for a long time. Especially if it means that I can have great days out too!

Captain Cook asks my child a question - will she bat or bowl. It takes her an eternity to answer. 

Cooky and Trevor, head of Junior Cricket

Monty takes a wicket and goes off to high-five the entire crowd!

James Foster

Nick Browne on his way to a fine score

Ravi

 

The centre of attention!