Mute Swan

Jubilee Pond, the aquatic equivalent of an open sewer, had over 20 Mute Swan on it earlier in the year. Whilst catching Tuberculosis I decided to take a few photos of them, but rather than an entire post of large white birds I thought I would post just the one. It is called restraint, and I am well known for it. Now that spring is underway there are now fewer than 20 on it. Far fewer as it happens, and in fact at some point soon there will likely be only two as all other birds will have been relentlessly hounded off by the dominant pair who for some twisted reason view Jubilee Pond as an asset worth hanging on to. Birds can lack taste too.

The cob currently spends his entire day cruising around all fluffed up, serenely homing in on the nearest interloper like a guided missile. Rarely does he actually have to flap, the target bird, possibly his own offspring, usually takes off well before that stage. He then smoothly changes direction and with laser-like precision lines up the next victim. The same thing is happening on Alex, so there is a constant traffic of displaced Mute Swans travelling back and forth between the two ponds. At some point they will realise the futility of this and seek pastures new, but for now the air is full of the curious sound of Mute Swan wings.

And yes, this post is best categorised under "filler". Sign of the times.

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.

Getting there

Remiss of me not to mention the bonus Grey Wagtail whilst twitching the Little Ringed Plover. How a birder can go over three months without seeing a patch resident is beyond me, I can offer no excuses beyond incompetence. Remedied now but I am still missing a Peregrine, and not for lack of staring at the sky. One day – it is a marathon not a sprint, remember. If patch birding were easy….

That said it has got a bit easier of late, there has been a bit of migrant movement in this marathon. On an early morning dash around almost the whole of the patch the other morning I picked up Common Whitethroat and Lesser Whitethroat, and others have picked up House and Sand Martins, and what I assume is a returning Cetti’s Warbler along the Roding. So it is starting, finally. As for the Cetti’s, good news as this has been missing locally for too long. Last year’s bird was brief but we all had high hopes of a return, and dare I whisper it, a colonisation. I’d still describe it as slow overall but it is improving.

In other non-bird related news, my life remains extremely dull.

No, we didn't bring a picnic to the Little Ringed Plover twitch. However if you recall, the previous weekend had been extremely pleasant on the weather front. As you can see, this brings out the best in people.

A bit of a turn up for the books

The weather changed on Monday and so did the birds. Presumably the massive high at the weekend that saw BBQs across the land fired up also saw every migrant sail right over the top of us and onwards north, however with that dissipating and some clouds and headwind appearing, so too did some birds. The patch saw its first Whitethroat, Lesser Whitethroat, Redstart, and best of all, Nick's veritable uberflock of waders in the form of three Little Ringed Plovers, feeding on the excuse for a pond that is Heronry. I had thought the Corporation's management of Heronry was a disaster, but now I recognise that leaving it to rot is actually an act of genius. My mistake.

Only because they stayed all day though, and I was able to twitch them late on after work. Had they disappeared during the day, as I thought likely, then I would probably still be moaning. As it was regular reports were received all day, and a mad dash from the tube in the evening delivered the goods. These three double the number of LRPs I've seen on the patch in the last 12 years, so this is a pretty amazing occurence.

Tony and James thought so too, falling over senseless soon after arriving and laying eyes on this mega trio, with only Richard retaining any sort of composure. For James this is sensational, only the previous day had we been discussing the paucity of his wader list, and now it has increased by a huge percentage. 

The birds were actively feeding throughout the time I was there and had been all day, and so it was no surprise that when I returned the next morning with a camera bigger than my phone that there was no sign. Still, I did pick up both the Whitethroat and the Lesser Whitethroat on the way back so it wasn't a wasted journey, not to mention the small matter of six miles under the belt before breakfast.

So finally a bit of patch success - waders on the deck here is pretty monster, and three for an entire day is very nearly unheard of. More please!

Vange vistas

After a dire Saturday in Wanstead I abandoned the patch on Sunday and went somewhere I might actually see some birds. I had a lot to do so didn’t go too far – popped my head in at Rainham to see H briefly, and then headed to Vange to see if the Black-winged Stilts were still there. Two pairs had been reported the previous day at the site, I was keen to see if I could double my previous total of two birds from the same site last year. I couldn’t as it happens, only one pair were present, but they showed very well even just through bins. A shame I hadn’t brought my scope as the views would have been superb, but I was travelling extremely light - it was a beautiful day and I simply hadn’t been bothered to take anything other than the bare minimum. Binoculars and flip-flops helped me stand out in a sea of camo. Not sure where the other pair went, but there is lots of eminently suitable habitat in this area of Essex (and Kent), so perhaps these colonists were not that far away.

I hadn’t brought my camera either so I have no photos of the birds, but one of the things about birding is that it takes you to the nicest places and you can often get nice landscape shots with just a phone that enable others to get a feel for an area. Vange for example is quite outstanding, you can see why these rare waders were drawn back here again this year. It was good to be somewhere different, somewhere a lot nicer than the devastation of Wanstead Flats frankly, and whilst there are many fine vistas the following two are my favourite.

Afterwards I went to Aldi in Pitsea to complete the experience. It didn’t disappoint.

Slow spring

Contrary to what finds it's way on here, I have been birding a lot locally this spring. It is just that I feel that blog post after interminable blog post about hearing only Chiffchaffs doesn't make for great reading, so I have largely ignored my fruitless forays out onto the patch. It has been sort of enjoyable getting out there early before all the people and their pets, but equally it could have been a lot more enjoyable if I had been bumping into Ring Ouzels, hearing Willow Warblers, raising my bins and turning distant dots into hirundines and so on. No, I am afraid it has been dull as the proverbial ditch-water. Perfect blogging material now I think about it..... 

I did add a few singing Blackcaps last Saturday, but after the early excitement of London's first Wheatear of 2017 raised expectations to fever pitch, the patch has done nothing but underperform. Our neighbours in Walthamstow meanwhile have been clearing up, loads of decent birds to remind us how little we're seeing, and to add to the daily depression of another two hours in bed sacrificed for no good reason I have to walk past the scars of the Corporation of London's latest land clearance scheme. I have a post on this lined up actually, but every time I am ready to publish it I discover another area that has been razed to the ground and need to record that too.

Adding to the feelings of being hard done by are the daily missives from the East London Retired Birders Club. This is a Whatsapp group, and I am seemingly the only employed member of it. You can imagine where this leads. A constant feed of people seeing tons of migrants across the local reservoirs and the river. A network of dedicated observers with nary a care in the world, out on their patches from dawn to dusk, revelling in migrant after migrant. Work? Overrated apparently. The first Sedge Warbler, 30+ Sand Martins, some lingering Mergs, oh, some Black-winged Stilts. Nice. From my desk in Canary Wharf I grimace and carry on. That I was unemployed for two years and doing exactly the same to them is long forgotten of course, it is the here and the now that matters.   

All it will take however is one Red-rumped Swallow or Alpine Swift to make it all alright again. I live in hope, eyes to the sky. We may not have had many migrants this year, but imagine if one of those European overshoots made landfall here. It is what keeps local patchwatchers on their toes - we had a R-RS once, in the 1970s, and there was an Alpine Swift over nearby Leyton Flats only a few years ago, easily under a mile away, so it can and does happen. Just not very often sadly. 

You can see this year's somewhat pitiful list here.

Like a busy bee

Did you read that 20 million Britons are physically inactive? Not me! Or am I? I like to think of myself as active - but am I just busy? These are the words of a lady mentioned in the article who had a heart attack aged 44. Much older than me obviously, but food for thought. As regular readers will know, I have a million interests and am forever charging around the place in the pursuit of them. It might be birding, it might be travelling, it might be horticulture, it might be a bit of all three combined - never a dull moment! Along with regular family life I certainly feel very busy, but am I active? 

I have no time at all for any exercise, in both senses. I actually don't have any time, and I also just don't like the thought of it. Going to a gym? Ugh. I thought I might cycle to work, and for a while I did, but that didn't last due to various medical complaints that I am still using as excuses. The ankle I think is probably still just about valid. Anyway, whilst various bits of me do their best to malfunction, I instead decided I would do a lot of walking, but I am not sure how good this is for me. I have lost no weight at all. The only thing that seems to happen is that if I walk more than about eight my miles my other foot starts hurting. Then again, are all of these miles allowing me to stay flat, and I would have ballooned had I not? An interesting experiment perhaps awaits!

Typically I am lousy at staying true to anything which requires grit. Doing five miles a day on my own two feet however has thus far been remarkably easy, which probably explains why I am still doing it. Three months in I have just passed the 500 mile mark, and whilst not every week has seen me meet the 35 mile goal, there have been many that beat it by so much that the daily average is currently sitting at about 5.4. I am amazed by this, not least because my daily commute to work is only one and a half miles. Somehow nearly four more come from doing other things.

Birding is the obvious one. A typical morning commute is (during fine weather in spring!) extended by at least a mile and a half, possibly two, as I take various haphazard routes across Wanstead Flats rather then walk straight to the tube. By the time I get to work I am probably already on about three miles, and wandering around the office during the day seems to add another half mile or so and so by the time I get home I am basically done. My evening chores around the house seem to chew up the rest.

Mystery bird...

Weekends are different. The morning assault on Wanstead Flats is usually around five miles. A couple of circuits in the vain hope I might see something good. And this spring it really has been in vain... Once back home however is where the real work begins. This Saturday just gone I arrived back home on about six miles. I then did a further four at home! Four miles just walking around  the house and garden! To be clear, despite its name, Chateau L is in fact a regular suburban house. It is sadly not a vast estate with sweeping vistas down to the boating lake. Somehow all the things I had to do around the house added up to quite a hefty walk. I mowed the lawn, I repotted and watered the plants, I filled up the bird-feeders, I cleaned the greenhouse roof with a pressure washer, I hung up washing, I swept, I vacuumed, I picked things up off the floor, I walked into rooms and forgot why, I ticked off my to-do list in a frenzy of activity. Chores means miles, and this is what I meant by being busy, and I wonder if this is what the lady on the BBC meant too?

Sunday was even more hectic. I was at my parents house helping out - a huge list of jobs had been prepared for my arrival, and so from 9am to about 5.30pm I ran around the place doing them all. There were a couple of minor excursions into the village, but by the end of the day I was on five miles again, from seemingly doing nothing. I was on my feet almost all day but there was no physical exertion whatsoever. This is probably the missing factor. I need to puff and blow, and no amount of walking is ever going to achieve that. No, I need more, the question is what though.