January 8-14: Week 2 100 up

I started Week 2 on my local patch at Brent Reservoir where the only new bird of the year was a Peregrine. As the Dusky Warbler had been showing again over the past few days I decided I need to give it another go. I spent all of the following morning on both sides of the railway line, meeting quite a few other birders who were also trying to track it down. At one point I thought it had been found as half a dozen birders were surrounding a warbler but it was just a Common Chiffchaff.

On my final walk around I heard it calling opposite the reedbed in a long scrubby patch and saw it flit across a gap but the path was too waterlogged to follow it any further. At least I’d managed to catch up with it and probably won’t be returning for a better view. On my way back through the Wetlands I ran into a Grey Wagtail, one of a few common species that I hadn’t yet caught up with this year.

Staines Reservoir seemed to be hosting a good selection of birds so the next day I headed over there. I was somewhat taken aback that the subway I usually take to get to the reservoir had been stolen so had to use the new multiple pedestrian crossings to cross the dual carriageway.

Once on the causeway I started to scan for the four target birds that had been seen the previous day. Another birder located the Slavonian Grebe on the South Basin and I had a look in his scope to see it but couldn’t refind it anywhere. The usually obliging Great Northern Diver was notable for its absence so I wandered down the other end of the causeway where some other birders had gathered, including Neil who I’ve known for decades. Several Goldeneye were around and I located a distant flock of Black-necked Grebes at the back of north basin.

The GN Diver suddenly appeared on the same basin and then vanished without a trace. I’ve never worked out how divers do that on a reservoir, either they possess an invisibility cloak or have the ability to create underwater tunnels to cross to another reservoir. I managed to locate the Slav Grebe against the far south bank and get everyone else on it before Neil found two Ruddy Shelducks flying in. They landed on the south basin and looked pretty smart but I later discovered that they’d been in the area for six months and were presumed escapes. So, no bonus bird but I was well pleased to get all four targets.

Ruddy Shelducks

Looking at the local bird news the rarest bird that I still needed was White-fronted Goose at Fairlop so that was my next day out. Normally going to Fairlop is quite easy as it’s just a five minute walk from the tube station but just as we approached Leytonstone there was an announcement that a broken down train had caused the suspension of services on the Central Line loop. Rather than turn round and go back home I exited the station and decided to get a bus there. Well three buses actually as I didn’t know which one to take so had to work out a route. Luckily the bus stop was just a couple of minutes from the paddocks where the geese had been. Unluckily, they weren’t there. I decided to walk around Fairlop anyway and did add Skylark to my year list but that wasn’t much compensation. Fortunately I could see that the tube service had resumed so once I’d done a circuit I had a much easier return journey.

After another day at Brent Res I headed back to Rainham for my second visit of the year. There were still quite a few birds I needed and had planned to target gulls but the tide was in and there were hardly any gulls on the river so that didn’t pan out well. As usual I failed to connect with the Dartford Warbler but did catch up with a couple of relatively common birds I need in Green Sand and Linnet. Not sure how it took 13 days to see Linnet but it became my 100th species for the year.

To end Week 2 I went back to Cheshunt, this time with John & Janet. I still had a few target birds here, with priority being Smew. However, despite recent sightings we failed to locate either of the two birds that were seen that day. The only new bird was Treecreeper which we heard while having lunch which brought the end of Week 2 up to 101 species.