January 15-21: Week 3 highlights

I started Week 3 needing nine more species for my end of month target of 110. It was back to the Wetland Centre for my second attempt at Bittern. I spent an hour in Dulverton and WWF hides scanning the reedbeds to no avail but did hear a Redpoll flyover which was new. On my way to Peacock Hide I stopped by the Sheltered Lagoon for a quick scan as I saw Bittern there last month. Immediately I picked one up walking through the reeds. It was slightly obscured but always a good bird to see. It appeared to be fishing and presumably caught something as after a couple of minutes it just stopped moving and was virtually invisible. I pointed it out to a few birders as they walked past; some waited and eventually saw it while others carried on after failing to see it.

With an early success and no other target birds on site I decided to leave early and headed over to Regent’s Park where there were a couple of fairly easy year ticks (AKA plastic fantastic). There was no activity in the rail ditch so I carried on and soon found Mandarin and Red-crested Pochard. Once I’d confirmed they were fully-winged and therefore not collection birds I was able to count them.

I still had one local target to get so the following day I took a stroll up to Fryent Country Park for my first visit of the year there. Within about twenty minutes I heard a Nuthatch, my intended target then a bit later on watched another one feeding above me in a large oak. I did half a circuit of the park and exited near the paddocks so I could also visit Brent Res. I checked the trees where I’ve seen Little Owl before but there wasn’t one there this time.

Nuthatch

I decided to try Cheshunt for the third time this year. Prospects didn’t look good when I arrived with fog hanging around and when I could see some pits they were frozen over! I walked straight up to Ashley Pit. It was almost all frozen over but there were a few Coots around the wooded islands and they were joined by a stunning drake Goosander. Spurred on by my success I made my way over to Seventy Acres. The fog had just cleared and off the viewing platform was a redhead Smew. Even if this was the semi-resident bird of unknown origin it was still good to see but even better was the drake Smew that was definitely countable. It was too far off for a photo but that didn’t matter as it’s one of my favourite birds. As I’d gotten both targets and the Cattle Egrets had moved on I only spent the morning there.

Redhead Smew on Seventy Acres

The following day I made my first visit of the year to Crossness. There was always a good chance of seeing a few new year birds but it’s also a nice place to spend a morning, if you can put up with the smell! From Belvedere station it’s just a short walk to the nature reserve but it was a bit quiet on this visit. The tide was midway out which is about perfect here and there were hundreds of ducks dabbling in the water. I’ve no idea what they feed on as it’s a discharge from the water treatment works and quite frankly I don’t want to know!

Dabblers feeding frenzy

There were a good number of waders around including Curlew and Black-tailed Godwit but more importantly I saw two year ticks: Dunlin and Common Sandpiper. There’s usually a few of the latter species wintering along the Thames but they can sometimes be tricky to find although I wasn't too worried about seeing one at some point during the year.

This is a good place to look through the hordes of Herring Gulls for something more interesting but today there weren’t many gulls to look through so that was it for me. I cut through past the old driving range to the Clockwork Orange Lake (Thamesmere) where a Caspian Gull had been hanging around recently but didn’t see any sign of it so carried on to Abbey Wood station. Who knows, the next time I’m there I might even get to use the new Elizabeth Line, only four years behind schedule!

Common Sandpiper

It was back to Rainham on Friday to round off Week 3 on my regular walk with John & Janet. It took longer to get there than normal as C2C put on a reduced timetable for Covid, just as people were returning to work and then cancelled the train we had aimed for! We managed to dip two Dartford Warblers today, a new one on Rainham West and the regular one by Aveley Bay car park.

The flock of five Barnacle Geese were showing well on Wennington Marsh as we walked along the footpath.

Barnacle Geese with a Canada Goose

Out in Aveley Bay there was the usual flock of Avocet and on the Crayford side a large flock of Dunlin which I no longer needed. However, as I was scanning around over there I did locate a Yellow-legged Gull which was new for the year. Ravens continued to elude us so we stopped in the café for cake o’clock before doing a loop of the reserve. Pintails were present in large numbers and we heard three Water Rails calling from one point along the boardwalk. The regular Ruff was seen on Target Pools from the platform. 

With no other new birds added I finished the week on a nelson – 111 species, now one ahead of my end of month target.