Just a bit of murk this morning with no grotty claggy fog but
thankfully also no wind either. I headed
out shortly after we opened up and wended my way towards the woodland. Redwings
and Song Thrushes were pinging out of the bushes and the playground held a nice
mixed flock of Green, Gold and Chaffinches.
I successfully pished out a Goldcrest and some Long-tailed
Tits by the bridge and a Chiffchaff called a little further back but was
drowned out by the Cetti’s Warblers which were giving it large. A Great Spot Woodpecker dropped into the
chestnuts and had a quick thump at a dead branch or two before bounding off.
Amazingly, just for once, I actually remembered to look for
the Barn Owl and one of them was sitting almost right outside their box albeit
still miles away. A Common Darter flicked by and Wasps were out on patrol and
seemingly after sluggish flies.
No one saw a Dartford Warbler yesterday so I was very pleased to pick
up what seemed to be the darker male bird in the little elders with its
Stonechat chaperones. He performed very well for a few minutes before going to
ground again. This is definitely not the bird that we saw last week and fits in
with the original report of a male bird and not a drab first-winter bird.
Indeed later on both birds were seen in the same spot so keep your eyes peeled.
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Dartford Warbler |
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Dartford Warbler and Stonchat - Trevor Oakley |
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Stonechat |
There were plenty of Skylarks and finches bimbling around
and they were to become a feature of the morning. A little further on the last of Clive Watts’s
summer charges was still in her dew soaked web although by midday she had
apparently gone. As none of us have ever seen a wasp Spider past the last week
in September this late run of specimens here has been remarkable.
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Wasp Spider |
The smell of the huge Polar just past Ken B is probably the
most autumnal of any tree on site – rich and earthy with just a hint of decay
and damp. I am never sure if I actually like the smell or not (a bit like Horse
Chestnut flowers) but it is so much a sign of the turning of the seasons with
green leaves turning golden yellow before the blackness of their species
quickly overtakes them.
Out on Aveley Pools there were 21 scattered Pintail in
elegant upending pairs while Shoveler squibbled in groups and a Little Egret
and several Grey Herons speared fish in the shallow water. There are only a
smattering of diving duck so far as the water levels remain so low. Both the
adult male and female Marsh Harriers quartered the marsh with the male looking
particularly resplendent while in the corner of the Tringa Pool a smart Water
Pipit alerted me to its presence with its less strident ‘phist’ call.
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Pintail |
I was then delighted to discover that the annual reprofiling
of the Butts Scrape had attracted at least five of these smart, pale,
eyestriped pipits to scurry along the muddy margins with several Pied Wagtails,
20 Meadow Pipits and a big flock of Linnets. I am hopeful that this becomes a
feature of the winter rather than us trying to find odd birds on the foreshore.
It is not that they are difficult to identify, it is just that trying to find
them lurking amongst the seaweed is! Other sites such as Staines Moor,
Stodmarsh, Minsmere and the Yare Valley Marshes hold good wintering numbers in
similar habitat so perhaps this is the time of change for our precious piece of
marsh?
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Water Pipit |
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Water Pipit |
Snipe zig-zagged overhead and a Kingfisher almost flew into
the hide as it zipped towards the MDZ. The male Marsh Harrier gave another fly
by and my first Short-eared Owl of the day dropped back onto the foreshore in the
distance after going for one of their early morning wanderings. Later on up to
five would be seen incredibly well down at the west end of the river wall where
they have a liking for the longs on the saltmarsh before heading up onto the
capped landfill and into the Enclosed Bay to hunt. The quality of the images
coming out of there has been superb.
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male Marsh Harrier |
Basil Thornton and his wife were watching the Bearded Tits at
the Dragonfly Pool at incredibly close range but I could not focus on them
quick enough and thankfully Basil let me use his wondrous shots.
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Bearded Tit - Basil Thornton |
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Bearded Tit - Basil Thornton |
Just a short way past this the energetic vols were busy with
the lengthy task of fitting the new plastic planking onto the section of
boardwalk that has had to be replaced. They are doing a great job – only about
3.5km to go...
Up on the river wall where the low tide revealed a great
selection of waders across both sides of the Thames with 4 Knot, Bar-tailed Godwit, 18
Black-tailed Godwit, Greenshank, Spotted Redshank, 180 Dunlin, 97 Redshank, 391
Lapwing, 8 Golden Plover and 4 Curlew. Knot are especially scarce here and
Fraser did well to find them first thing this morning. Teal and gulls lined the
edges and I counted nine Yellow-legs amongst them. The first three Shelduck
were also back on the mud after their summer sojourn to Germany but more of
that later. Two tame Kestrels allowed a
close approach on my amble back along the Victorian seawall and six Rock Pipits
and yet more Skylarks were seen but a sausage bap brunch beckoned and only some
super spotty Starlings and Teasel munching Goldfinches distracted me for the
last hundred yards.
The rest of the day was an inside affair but I cannot really
complain with frequent views of various Marsh Harriers and the two monster
Ravens once again upsetting the local corvids and causing me mid-meeting to
exclaim ‘oh...look a Raven – kronk kronk’.
A Short-eared Owl even glided past the window and along the southern trail much
to everyone’s delight while plump Greenfinches investigated the fat hips
outside the window.
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Shorties - Tom Bell |
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Shortie - Bill Crooks |
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Shortie - Russ Sherriff |
The final noteworthy sight for the day was a skein of high
flying small ‘geese’ that Andy Tweed somehow picked up. They were mere dots and
it took some time to get them in the scope but they were not Pinkies as we first
suspected but 23 migrating Shelduck dropping in from a grey sky freshly arrived
after their long flight from the Waddenzee where the adults head en masse in
the summer to moult on this huge shallow body of water with tidal flats and
wetlands.
So, although they ‘only’ turned out to be Shelduck and not
some unusual incoming grey geese, their arrival is probably more significant
for announcing the return of a species that is characteristic of our mighty
southeast muddy estuaries and to show that you should always expect the
unexpected but that it is not always something as out of the ordinary as you
might as hoped!