As I intimated in a recent post, Waders are
the holy grail on my local patch. Given the lack of current activity on the
patch I thought I might revisit past glories, all 13 of them. Always a lot of blogging mileage
in memory. So here are the last 13 years. Slow going? Oh yes.....
Common Snipe
For many years I don’t think I recorded a
single Wader on the Flats, they were all but impossible. Although I had been
birding the patch for around four years by then, I didn’t record my first wader
until 2008! This is a combination of me being pathetic and waders being
difficult, back then probably more the former. It was of course a Common Snipe,
probably the commonest Wader in terms of number of sightings. They’re a winter
resident (although not in 2017!) and until recently an amble around the SSSI
was likely to see a Common Snipe take off with a throaty rasp from the long
grass towards Jubilee. Almost a gimmee really, or that’s what I would have said
before this year.
Wood Sandpiper
I didn’t get anything else in 2008, but my
second Wader on the patch, in 2009, remains one of my best. It was in mid-August and I was just approaching Alex early in the morning. Remarkably I think I got
there before any of the dog-walkers, and the next thing I knew a small wader
with a white rump was flying fast and low away from me down the south side of
the pond. It didn’t make a sound, and it was distinctly brown rather than the
black-and-white impression that Green Sandpipers can give. I reflected all day and
called it a Wood Sandpiper – probably a little naively in retrospect – I think
today I would either have let it go, or more likely I’m just a better birder
and would have called it easily. In any event there is a happy ending as a
couple of years later in early April 2011 I caught up with a bird on Angel Pond, and this
one left no room for doubt at all.
Woodcock
I first recorded Woodcock on the Flats in the
winter of 2009. At the time this was a huge surprise to me, but I think I’ve
seen one almost every year since then. Another winter visitor, they tend to
bury themselves deep in cover during the day, and either you wait for a regular
bird to come out into the open (which is my tactic these days), or it is just
pure blind luck that you bump into a day-flying bird. I’ve only ever flushed one
bird, which exploded from underneath a bush in the boggy bit of the SSSI. All
the others have been fly-bys in broad daylight and have given the most amazing
views. Not amazing enough to have ever caught one on film, the one (really
good) opportunity I had was when the first one I ever saw cruised by about ten
feet above the ground all the way from one horizon to the other when I was
stood out in the middle of Wanstead Flats. All I could do was stare at it
dumbfounded with my camera dangling uselessly by my side as it crossed my field
of vision almost infinitely slowly. Sometimes this is just the way birding should
be.
Lapwing
By number, Lapwing is the most common Wader
I’ve seen in Wanstead - 730 birds on the patch over years. This is still largely down to one extraordinary day in February 2012 when I recorded nearly 400. That snowy day also saw my first Jack
Snipe and Golden Plover, but it was the Lapwing that stood out as they regularly
flew over in groups ranging from 10 or so to over 40. My first were actually in
December 2009, I was birding in the Park near Perch Pond and all of a sudden I
thought I heard a Lapwing. Then there were 12 birds above me heading north. What a score! I was flabbergasted of course, but
retained enough composure to race home and stand in the garden, where shortly
after I got another bird flying south. It remains the only one I’ve ever seen
from the garden. These days along with Snipe and perhaps Common Sandpiper it is
the most likely Wader on the patch, and is most commonly associated with winter
movements in hard weather, as on that amazing day in 2012. If you don’t have
that however it becomes a lot harder, and it’s entirely possible to have a blank
year as I did in 2016.
Dunlin
I still remember this as if it were
yesterday, this tiny wader pottered along the shoreline of Jubilee Pond all day
in April 2010. You could practically reach out and stroke it, it had clearly not
seen people before, not even the local drunks could phase it. I visited it twice, once I think very
rapidly for the pure twitch, and then again later in the day with a camera,
though as you can see I did not make the most of it. Still the only one I’ve
seen in over 10 years, which makes it one of the rarest patch birds.
Common Sandpiper
This is another annually expected bird,
though I did not see my first until May 2010. I’ve now seen a total of 19, and they
seem to be commonest on the concrete sides of Heronry pond in the months of April and August. I love flicky flight which along with their characteristic bobbing makes
them very charismatic little birds. I think my best year was 2011 when I saw seven.
Little Ringed Plover
I remember excitedly finding my first LRP
sitting in the gravel carpark next to the Alex in March 2012. I was there twitching a Common Sandpiper which had
disappeared. I did a double-take as a small wader flew past me that appeared to
have a black and white collar. Hang on a minute, Common Sand shouldn’t look like that!
Nick crashed over, I think it was a first for him too. Since then I’ve seen
another four or five, one was quite a friendly bird that hung about on what we call the
Police Scrape for a few days, and more recently a veritable flock of three
birds were on a dried-out Heronry pond in April 2017. In a way I am surprised I
have not seen more of these, I suspect we do get more that arrive at night but that they are pushed off very early by the almost constant disturbance.
Stone Curlew
Remarkably I’ve seen two Stone Curlews on
Wanstead Flats – this is a scarce bird in a national context, let alone London.
The first was found by Nick one morning in April 2011 and he was the sole observer, but the
following morning he found it again, this time flying back west, happily
towards where I was. He was over near the forbidden triangle somewhere and I
had been on my way home and was sprinting to get past Coronation Copse for a
clear view. As I desperately approached the wood, movement to my right caught
my eye – the distinctive black and white wings of a Stone Curlew folding up
into the long grass near Centre Copse and the VizMig Point. Despite people
converging on the area it was never seen again. I thought this would be a
blocker for all the ages, but two years later in late March 2013 I was walking
west across Wanstead Flats when I noticed a low-flying bird some distance ahead
of me. I lost it almost immediately as it flew over Centre Road, but all my
senses were screaming Stone Curlew despite the unlikeliness. I made a bold call
to put the news out and get people on site, and happily about five minutes
later was able to confirm my strong suspicions as I caught it banking over
motorcycle wood. It disappeared yet again before anybody else had managed
to turn up, but I think about half an hour later a number of people got some
prolonged flight views as the bird circled over Long Wood before deciding that
Wanstead was a little busy and heading north, probably over my garden!
Green Sandpiper
For ages and ages this was my local wader
nemesis. I almost always missed birds which were frequently fly-overs, and it
seemed for years that I was the only person missing this species. I finally
scored over near Alex in July 2011 when 2 birds came off the lake and happily
flew more or less past me. Since then I’ve seen few more singles and a flock of four over the SSSI. The only bird on the ground was bird pottering around the edge of Shoulder of Mutton
Pond in the park.
Oystercatcher
Probably the least satisfying of all my
wader ticks, in heavy fog one morning the undmistakable kleep of an
Oystercatcher came from the murk ahead of me somewhere. Never saw it on a
morning where I could barely see a few paces in front of me. Still, they all
count. Earlier this year I had what I thought was another on another murky day,
but as it only called once I let it go. As it happened this was the same day
where the first returning bird was found on the Thames a short while later. I wonder….
Jack Snipe
I’ve seen a couple Jack Snipe, but the first
was the most memorable. It was day of 400 Lapwings, and after most of these
dried up a number of us were checking out the mostly frozen Alex as there had been a Med Gull. All of a
sudden a wader came in, skidded on the ice and came to a halt under the
branches. It looked small and the beak looked short. Tim had a clearer view of it
as he was standing on the other side of the pond and confirmed our suspicions! We went around to join him
and it started to bob…. The second was far less exciting, but Nick cornered a
suspect in the ditch near Alex in 2013. It came up and flew to the larger ditch of
despair, and then did a nice close flight to allow all of us to see that it was
clearly a Jack.
Golden Plover
Remember that day I told you about with
nearly 400 Lapwings and that Jack Snipe? (Hint, this was in the previous
paragraph. If you can’t remember then you have a problem). When we all moved
over to join Tim for better views of the Jack Snipe six Golden Plover swept
over from the east. My shout, well scream really, could probably have been
heard at Rainham. A memorable moment. I’ve seen a few more since then,
including twitching some late in the afternoon from my moving car following a
stressful journey back to the patch from a national twitch. Astonishingly those
two birds were then joined by a third overnight, and relocated to Police Scrape
where a short period of crawling through frozen mud allowed some relatively
close photos.
Curlew
My last and final patch wader, there has
been nothing new for me since these birds in 2013. Dan (Dan the wader man) had
scored a flock of about a dozen in poor visibility earlier in the morning, and
the rest of us were now out and about on the patch hoping for more. And morose.
I found Dan and his magic satchel and stuck to him like glue. Sure enough,
somewhere near the vizmig point the magic occurred and all of a sudden there
were two Curlews over our heads. They must have come from the nearby playing fields
as I didn’t see the satchel open, but who knows. It was over in a split second
or so it felt like, but I can remember it as if it were yesterday. Needless to
say there are no photos, but no photo could really cover the depth of this
experience nor convey the absurd excitement.
