Barnes migrant bonanza

After the rain on Wednesday morning I was optimistic that it might have brought down a few migrants so headed off to London Wetland Centre. Things looked good straight away with a Wheatear on the playing fields. There were more migrants within the reserve and I quickly picked up a big mixed flock that included 3-4 Chifchaffs and a couple of Blackcaps. After the flock had been through therewere some singles and small groups including a f/imm Whitethroat, more Blackcaps, 2 Willow Warblers and a Lesser Whitethroat. In the WWF Hide I finally caught up with the Garganey that has been seen on and off for almost a week (assuming its the same bird, which it looks like being from the photos on the LWC website). This looks like an adult female rather than a juv.

Numbers of Shoveler have also been rising - now to around 20 birds.

Walking around the Sheltered Lagoon produced a good local migrant - which then proved really hard to get a photo of. Mystery bird photo!

OK, it's not much of a mystery but these were the best photos I could get before the bird was flushed by a family crashing around and screaming at each other.

Following the hedge back round and past the Peacock Hide found another small group of warblers: Chiffchaffs, Willow Warblers, Blackcaps and three Lesser Whitethroats. This juvenile Willow Warbler was part of the pack.

So was this Lesser Whitethroat (one of three). Although it doesn't really show up that well here from the front and side it showed a nearly complete white eyering and faint white super so I assume it's one of this year's birds.

The Willow Warbler and Lesser throat photos took a little time to get since the birds were tearing around the bushes but seemed like time well spent. Until I got to the Peacock Hide to find out an Osprey had flown over about 10-15 minutes ago - which would have been a patch tick for me. Oh well.

There was a Hobby hunting over the grazing marsh, catching dragonflies. The only shot I could get of a catch was pretty distant.

Garganey and the boy

Today was a bit of an experiment day - whether it's possible to do any real birding with the eldest boy (22 months) in tow. He is adorable and loves being outside, but is easily bored when I'm not paying him any attention. In general the answer was 'no not really' but it was possible to do a few quick scans of the Main Lake and some bits of the reserve. Trips with him or both boys to the Wandle tend to work OK because there aren't really that many birds so only getting about 10 minutes of birding time is OK. Trying to do Barnes with only 10 minutes of actual birding is frankly a bit tricky. The advantage of getting it to work is that I get an extra chunk of birding time at the weekend. Since my average this year is half a day a week (work, childcare, life occupy the rest) even a small chunk is a big step forward.

Anyway, despite the limitations of child centred birding I did manage a Barnes year tick (Garganey) and a few other bits of niceness including 9 Snipe and increasing numbers of duck. Winter is coming.

Rich Wet Staines

Or in other words a trip to Richmond Park, London Wetland Centre and Staines Res. Nice range of woodland birds at Richmond including Nuthatch, loads of Mandarins, all 3 woodpecker spp, Treecreeper, Coal Tit, 10+ singing Blackcaps and about the same number of non-singing males plus a few females. Barnes still had 2 (m&f) Wigeon, 2 LRPs, Green Sand (on Wader Scrape), c25 Sand Martins, White Wag on the main lake, 1 or (probably) 2 Cetti's. Staines had a few Common Tern, 3 Oystercatcher, m&f Garganey, GN Diver (spending most of its time underwater), 2-3 Black necked Grebe and still 8 Goldeneye.