Wandle: 6-0 or 7-2?

Off to the Wandle today with the boys and high hopes. The reason for the high hopes is the chance of getting 7 species of gull and 2 patch ticks. I'm confident of picking up the usual gulls (GBB, LBB, Herring, BH) and also have a chance of Common Gull (already picked up on the patch by Mr Thing two weeks ago). There's also the chance of picking up the ad Yellow legged Gull that's been loafing around for a while and that I originally saw about 3 weeks ago and which has been seen since. Even more majorly there's the chance of a Med Gull that was seen over the Wetland Centre a couple of days ago (as the gull flies only a mile or so from the patch boundary). Clean up on those and it would mean a massive 7 gull species day. The Med would also be a patch tick, as would Redshanks seen both just outside the patch (by Nathalie) and, even more tantalisingly, actually on patch mud just 2 days ago. So the target is 7 gulls spp and 2 patch ticks.

At the Wandle mouth it looks like a few of the local species have had a good breeding season with four juvenile Blackbirds, at least 3 juv Greenfinches and a single Goldfinch in the immediate area.

A couple of Mute Swans on the Wandle Delta

One of the local Greylags with Canuck.

Herring Gull landing:

Male Sparrowhawk over the Thames

The Yellow legged Gull of a few weeks back is still around - a bit closer this time.