...and another

Decided to pop in to the Lockwood res this evening on a hunch that the recent showers interspersed with sunny periods - and a backdrop of dramatic cloud formations & continued chilly Northerly breeze - might have tempted in another interesting avian visitor, and very glad I did.
Walking along the East bank, which appears to be favoured of late, there were a couple of Common Sands scurrying along at the water's edge, then further up with a few Starlings I noticed a small wader with bright orange-yellow legs which I thought might be another Ringed plover (it was distant at this point and facing away). Soon after heard a strangely familiar wader-like call and picked up on a splendid summer-plumaged TURNSTONE which took off from the bank, flew right past me and (fortunately) landed again a short distance away & continued to feed.
Cant remember the last record here for this species, but I doubt whether they're even seen annually. I let a few locals know, but it was only Paul that got down to join me, sacrificing his dinner in the process (that's dedication for you), and taking the accompanying record shot. This was a patch first for both of us, another welcome addition to the year list and my 110th species - only 8 below last year's tally...keep 'em coming!
Lol Bodini

Another wader pays a visit

Following on from Paul's last post, it was just a tad disappointing to have missed yesterday's Turtle Dove - which would've been a patch first for me and must at best be a once-a-year type species here (if that) - particularly as I had gotten up especially early yesterday morning to do some loft-watching over the res and had spent 2 hours up there, the only notable bird being a low flying Hobby directly over my house.
So a lunchtime text today from Dan Barrett (cheers Dan) about a Ringed Plover on the East bank of the Lockwood would be a welcome consolation prize - if I could get there before it departed.
Took me a couple of hours to get onto the res on my way to the tube station at Tottenham Hale, so only time for a brief visit. Still quite a chill in the air with a NE breeze, but fortunately the bird was still skulking in the SE corner, perfectly camouflaged & almost invisible without a 'scope against the bleached concrete of the exposed bank. No pics on this occasion (must get in the habit of taking the camera as often as poss, to at least get some record shots as PW has been doing).
Ringed Plover is also a very scarce annual visitor to the site, and only my 2nd here if memory serves...& still no LRPs on the Lockwood compared with the half dozen or more we had at this time last year! There's still time mind...
LB

Double flush

This morning’s foray for Wadery goodness was met with drizzle and therefore a modicum of optimism, this soon dissolved however as a walk around the Lockwood revealed that Common Sandpipers were down from three to two, Greenshanks were totally absent and the only other Waders present were the on/off pair of Oystercatchers. Sometimes they are here, sometimes on the East Warwick, occasionally on No.5 but usually nowhere to be seen. Where else do they go? Will they ever breed?

All was not lost however as I inadvertently flushed a Turtle Dove from the grass bank at the North end of the Lockwood. I didn’t see it until it until it flew and when it did it just kept going in the direction of Higham’s Park till lost to view. Lol, who needs it for the patch, had been loft watching until just before this but decided to have some breakfast as I found out when I called to tell him of my good fortune. The only other birds of note were a couple of single flyover Yellow Wagtails.

I spotted Pete at the South end of the Lockwood as I was preparing to leave, we had a quick phone conversation and as he said it looked good for a Turnstone on the East Warwick I decided to give that a go rather than give up. Though if I am honest I don’t think I really expected to find one. One thing is for sure, if I didn’t look I certainly wouldn’t find one.

Needless to say there was no stone being turned when I traipsed round, but I inadvertently (is this becoming a habit?) flushed a group of 9 Yellow Wagtails out of the Reeds on the Western edge of the reservoir, they flew around for a bit and came down further up the bank, unusually most of them disappeared into the flowers and denser vegetated bit around the edge rather than parade around in front of me on the path. When I did get a decent look though, at least 4 of them were Blue-headed (or hybrid). The best picture is of the worst looking of them, probably a washed out female but a couple were quite smart males, though with perhaps a bit more white on the throat than they should have for pure flava. Can’t say I really know how much white is too much. They certainly didn’t have the pale Lavender head colouring of Channel Wagtail, so perhaps they were within acceptable limits of variation for pure Blue-headed.
PW

It's more than just a Hobby.....

It’s a Greenshank too!

I forced myself out in the less than Spring-like weather this afternoon in the hopes of a Wader or two on the reservoirs, there had been numerous Whimbrels and the like all over London this morning so expectations were slightly higher than the normal setting...low.







A Common Sandpiper on the Fish cage on No.5 was not totally unexpected and neither were another 3 on the Lockwood, the Greenshank further up the East bank was a welcome patch year tick as was the Hobby sitting on the West bank, brought down by a sharp shower. But that was it, no more Waders, expectations were stood back down to low.





A Yellow Wagtail bathing along the edge of the Lockwood was nice, the first seen on the deck this year. Sand Martins and Swifts were giving good views too in the inclement weather, in fact the sky was heaving with Swifts, it made me happy, and I don’t suppose the Hobby was complaining either.

PW

A Murder of Crows

I was hoping for a patch year tick today so set off around the Pitch’n’Putt course, Walthamstow marsh and the Waterworks N.R looking for a Hobby, Turtle Dove, Whinchat, anything really, but it was not to be.

I started to consider what would be the headline bird for the blog title, would it be the Whitethroat singing 200m from my house (only house record is an autumn juvenile over 10 years ago), the small flock of Stock Doves in the same park, again a very difficult bird to get identifiable views from the house, or would it be the even bigger flock of Stock Doves, 56 in fact, feeding on the Horse field behind the riding stables in Lea Bridge Rd. This build up of numbers seems to be a Spring feature here. The photo is one I took a few days ago on the Reservoirs.


But then I had a what I thought was a singing Willow Warbler at the Waterworks which suddenly finished its song by going chiff-chaff, I listened again to make sure it wasn’t two birds but it did it quite a few times, then it started off with chiff-chaff and finished with Willow Warbler song. I have never, knowingly, heard one of these mixed singers before and assumed it must be a Willow Warbler, as the Willow bit was more convincing than the Chiffchaff bit (I never actually saw the bird in the dense Willow copse) but when I got home and listened to recordings on Xeno-Canto it would appear that it was probably a Chiffchaff with a divergent song. You live and you learn.

However a ferocious squawking drew my attention to a couple of Crows being attacked by a group of Magpies, on closer inspection I could see that the Crows had actually got a Magpie pinned down and were stabbing it to death. I had my headline. Bit like London gang warfare really, perhaps the Magpie had strayed into the wrong postcode, still as long as no one innocent suffers let them get on with it I say.

PW

Easy as 123

A fairly early start this morning soon revealed that the weather was better and the birds worse. The only thing of note was this lone, displaying Blue-bill, it seems to have a damaged wing, maybe DEFRA can offer an explanation! On the Lockwood, not a single Wader today but an invisible Yellow Wagtail flew over calling, heading East.

I had a couple of interesting looking Terns fly North onto the Banbury, I scoped the reservoir and was able to identify obvious Common Terns at that range but felt I had better hold off from positively claiming the other two as Arctic.

Having met Lol over on the Lockwood we decided to go and have a look on Walthamstow marsh for the 3 Whinchats claimed there yesterday, after we had had a quick look on the East Warwick. It didn’t take long to see there was nothing doing on there so we jumped in the car and headed South, simultaneously our phones went off, it was Pete texting to say he had some Arctic Terns on the Banbury if we were interested. We were.

Three minutes later we were watching 4, possibly 6, Arctic Terns hawking around with a few of their commoner cousins. Very smart they were too. Kudos to Pete for picking them up and confirming them without a scope and for letting us know. Whilst up there he told us of his morning and that he had had a few singing Garden Warblers on Tottenham marsh, my ears pricked up when he said one of them was on the Wild marsh East, this is on the (my) patch, Tottenham marsh isn’t. We scooted over there and after a bit of a search turned one up, we also had a Pheasant call, the most reliable area on the patch for them.

Later in the afternoon I checked Walthamstow marsh for the Whinchats but didn’t find any. A Ring-necked Parakeet flew over the Ice-rink, they are slowly spreading across the Lea from Hackney, perhaps they don’t like crossing water, it seems to have held them back for years. I still enjoy seeing them, but I am sure I will feel differently about them in a few years time when we are beating them off with sticks. I have thrown in a photo of an Egyptian Goose I took the other day for no other reason than it is fairly good, by my standards, and it completes the set of introduced birds on the patch today.

Thinking about it I forgot Little Owl, Greylag Goose, Mute Swan, Canada Goose....is there anything natural on Walthamstow! Oh yes, the Arctic Terns and Garden Warbler.

It felt like a quiet morning but you can’t really complain about two patch year ticks.

After Pete's Hobbies on Monday, Garden Warbler is patch bird no.123 for the year (and 107 for me).

PW

(On this date: 05 05 06 A Red Kite, in wing moult, flew in from the East and thermalled for a while, seen from the house at about 15:45. My first for the house and the patch, now annual)

Mum's gone to Greenland

I was going to describe the weather as freezing but raw is a better word, I didn't think I would need gloves in May but my metal tripod helped me realize I did.

After the many and varied Waders and Terns passing through London yesterday I thought I would have an early start at Walthamstow and see what had stopped off. I think I should have been here yesterday! The signs looked good, virtually the first bird I saw was a summer-plumaged Dunlin, initially on one of the Tern rafts on the Lockwood, before it was flushed off by a Lesser Black-backed Gull. Unfortunately the rest of the reservoir only held 3 Common Sandpipers and all the Terns were decidedly Common.

There were upward of 500 Swifts around with a handful of Swallows and House Martins but none of them wanted to be anything more exotic.

A pair of Oystercatchers on the island on East Warwick looked very photogenic so I put my reading (photo taking) glasses on, got the camera out, switched it on, zoomed it up, lined it up with the scope.....and off they flew, I remembered why I usually don't bother.

It's funny how whenever people find out you are a birder, the first question they ask is, do you take photographs? I wonder if people ever ask photographers, do you watch birds?

There was a narrow miss when news came out from Alexandra Palace of their first patch record of Marsh Harrier, this is easily visible from the Lockwood, (the Palace not the Harrier) it was low and flew West, perhaps it had flown across Walthamstow earlier, if so it managed to avoid me, and Pete too.

Probably the best bird of the morning was a very orangey female Wheatear on the West bank of the Lockwood, no doubt on her way to Greenland. I bet she felt right at home this morning in Walthamstow. BRRRR!

PW


(On this date: 03 05 97 A Goshawk, soaring over Seymour Park at lunchtime, moved off South. Nothing much at Walthamstow but the Heronry survey revealed a total of 102 nests.)