August 15th-21st: waders and flycatchers

 I popped up to Brent Res on Monday morning to look for waders from the hide but couldn’t find yesterday’s Wood Sand. All the others waders were equally matched with three each of Lapwing, Snipe, Common and Green Sands. My tentative plan for today was to go to Regent’s Park for the Pied Fly if it was still there and when I was in the hide I checked my messages and there was positive news so I didn’t explore the rest of the area, instead taking the bus down to Kilburn station.

It didn’t take long to get to Regent’s Park, arriving just before 9.00. I knew roughly where the bird was hanging out and walked up the west edge of the park, not stopping to look for any water birds on the lake. As I approached the area I heard the flycatcher calling. It reminds me of the opening note of a Goldfinch call and is often repeated for a while, making it easier to track down. I soon found the Pied Fly perched up high in a tree but it stopped calling when it saw me and promptly disappeared. I looped around the Chat Enclosure but there was nothing there. As I walked back it started calling again and I quickly found it but it did the same thing again and vanished.

I was really pleased to catch up with Pied Fly as I probably had a non-calling one at Brent yesterday but it also vanished quickly – too quickly as I wasn’t able to confirm it. It was another new one for my year list and not one that I was confident about getting. Unlike Spotted Flycatcher which I still haven’t seen yet but they are usually a bit later in August.

I decided not to explore the rest of the park as it was getting hot so just left by the nearest gate and roughly headed west where I thought there was a bus route. I emerged through the side streets at St John’s Wood station but carried on and took the bus home.

With various transport strikes going on during the week, that was my only real venture away from Brent apart from an evening visit south of the river to co-lead a bat walk around Southwark Park. The heatwave had finished and there had been some rain earlier in the day but luckily it was dry when we walked around. Common Pipistrelles were out before we even set off and everyone managed to see a few during the course of the evening. We also had Soprano Pipistrelles and probably a Brown Long-eared Bat in the same place we saw one last year but there was no sign of either of the two larger species that we should have got. Maybe they were full up after gorging on insects the previous evening.

Back at Brent, the Wood Sand reappeared on Tuesday and then remained all week, allowing quite a few people to come along and see this elegant wader. It spent most days in East Marsh so was really only viewable from the main hide but on Sunday it was briefly present in North Marsh. The same day I also heard a Greenshank calling as it flew past unseen behind some trees to add to this month’s wader list.

Wood Sandpiper on a raft after the water level rose

Passerine migration is now in full flow and the number of Willow Warblers fluctuated every day, peaking at a dozen. One of the favoured areas at Brent is the Dump and one morning I found a Common Redstart in one of the Elder bushes. The heat wave has caused the insect population to plummet with very few butterflies around and we still haven’t had a second generation Common Blue yet or even any Brown Argus or Small Copper all year. There’s also very few dragonflies around as well with just the occasional Migrant Hawker on the wing.

The only other thing of note was an exceptionally large specimen of Dryad’s Saddle that I found on a willow on the south side, measuring just over half a metre across.

Dryad's Saddle

I did manage a walk around Fryent Country Park on one day for a change. I was mainly looking for migrants on the hedges but it wasn’t a particularly good day with just a few Chiffs and Blackcaps seen. Most of the grass fields have been cut now and it’s looking very dry. The blackberry crop this year is looking pretty woeful but surprisingly the Blackthorns have produced a good crop of sloes.

Hedges looking good for migrants

Sloes

I did see a trio of Yellow Wagtails go over which is a good local record and found a perched Hobby.

Hobby