Barnes still on ice

Trip to London Wetland Centre with the boys - eldest off his reins to hard to get any birding done while keeping him out of ponds and ditches. Although warmer than recently all the small bodies of water are still iced over and even the larger ones are half covered in ice.

At least one Chiffchaff still on site (by entrance lake) also Shelduck, c200 Tufted on Main Lake, a flock of around 25 Redwings behind the Sheltered Lagoon, Bittern at the back of the Reservoir Lagoon, half a dozen Snipe, c50 Wigeon and circa 200 Teal.

Below: London Wetland Centre usually supports a flock of around 50 Wigeon from autumn to early spring.

This Bittern was taken at around 900-1000 feet which (partly) explains the poor quality of the shot.

Barnes Bittern new in

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.

The Bittern's there somewhere

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.

Numbers of Wigeon are up slightly this week

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.