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.

Snow, Staines and Smew but no Fudge

2010 was still missing a fair few quacks, so planned a trip to Staines Reservoir and Wraysbury. Targets were Smew, Scaup, Goosander, lack necked Grebe and Fudge Duck.

On arriving at Staines, a Snipe tazzed in front of the car . Up on the causeway the South Basin was covered in a thick layer of Pochard. I quickly picked up a redhead Smew, some Ruddies and a Black necked Grebe. Other birds included a couple more Snipe, c50 Wigeon, c30 Goldeneye, a Redshank, 2 Common Sands and a second redhead Smew. A face stripping NE wind made scanning the North basin difficult so the brown and white dots could have included the Scaup that was supposed to be hanging out there.

I headed for the car and a flyover redhead Goosander flew low over the causeway heading north, then gained height and headed north west.

Next up was a quick visit to Wraysbury to try and connect with the Fudge Duck reported from the BA pit. This was nearly completely iced over with only a small area of free water over by the sailing club. This held a couple of hundred birds that included a few Goldeneye and a female Red crested Pochard (presumably one of London’s feral birds). The story from the station car park was similar with only a tiny patch of free water where the stream flows into the pit occupied by half a dozen Teal.

Below - a few pics of Wraysbury all but iced over.