I'm trying to get the Saturday morning trip to London Wetland Centre with the kids built into the weekend routine. I’m keen to make this work since it creates some extra birding time in the week which is otherwise quite limited. The eldest boy is nearly two and the youngest is 8 months, which means the time available for the trip is pretty short after food, sleep times and getting the kids ready and loaded into the car are taken into account - factor in London traffic and we’re talking about not much more than an hour on site.
From Dulverton Hide the newly arrived Bittern was showing moderately well (for a Bittern). I’m still pretty stunned by just how regular a site for Bittern Barnes has become. Considering this is a pretty small patch of reeds in the middle of London it’s amazing that Bitterns are now annual here – at times there have been four birds present simultaneously.
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| The Bittern's there somewhere |
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| There it is |
There have also been other arrivals – Wigeon numbers are up from under 10 to around 16 birds, and Teal have increased from around 40 last week to around 60 this week. 3 Common Gulls. While Lapwing, Shoveler, Gadwall, and the rest of the ducks seem to be on around the same numbers.
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| Numbers of Wigeon are up slightly this week |
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| But Gadwall numbers are unchanged |
Over the site a flock of four Linnets, one or two Grey Wagtail, a Great spotted Woodpecker over high. Local bird taking a short cut or a migrant? I guess the odds have to be on a local bird but interesting nonetheless. There are still a few Chiffchaff around – 4-5 in the southern half of the site that I covered today so probably a dozen or so across the whole site.
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