Reservoir Pods

I was watching the rain this afternoon, watching for it to stop that is, eventually about 17:00 it looked like there was a big enough break that I wouldn’t get soaked to the skin and forth I sallied.

I spotted the pods of the millennium eye from the top of the Lockwood, yes it was that riveting a walk. I had seen them before from the Banbury, which is just a bit higher than the other reservoirs but I hadn’t realised that they could be seen from the Lockwood. You have to stand in just the right spot, about halfway along the North bank and there they are. Also visible, just, is the cross atop St. Paul’s Cathedral. It really goes to show why the patch is so good/useless (delete one, according to mood) we are surprisingly close to the city centre.

The LNHS (London Natural History Society) recording area is a circle with a twenty mile radius, centred on St. Paul’s. We are stacks closer to the hub than we are to the rim, check it out.


Whilst admiring the scenery I did stop momentarily to check the reservoir edge, there was a juvenile Little Ringed Plover, nice, and, a conservative count, of 14 Common Sandpipers. Someone please swap one of these for a Wood Sandpiper. No Green Sandpipers yet and also no Common Gulls in yet, they are arriving back in London at the moment so any day.


I risked life and limb by walking past the Tern rafts at the Southern end, the young are quite well grown now but the adults are still very defensive and fly the couple of hundred metres to the bank to dive at any passersby, perhaps this is the secret to why the young are quite well grown, good for them.

PW