Aug 28th-Sep 3rd: Migrants at Brent Reservoir

I spent the whole week just birding at Brent as there wasn’t a lot else going on around London. The Wood Sand ended its 16 day spell on the Bank Holiday Monday, leaving overnight with several Green Sands. The remaining Green and Common Sands stayed all week with up to five Lapwings while the number of Snipe increased during the week to reach four.

The late breeding Common Terns also stayed all week as there is still a juvenile that hasn’t yet started flying. In most years, they’ve all gone before the end of August. Despite working the hedges all week I couldn’t find any Spot Flys – they seem to be well down in number this year across the country. Aside from checking for migrants I did spend one morning working on a conservation task with a couple of other Brent birders. There’s a small stream which flows down the side of Woodfield Park and to cross it there’s two railway sleepers. With the lack of rain the stream had silted up and the flow was going around the sleepers so we had a muddy job to do clearing out the silt.

We managed to clear all the silt out under the sleepers and a bit downstream so the water flows underneath. There’s probably a bit more to be done further along the stream but we managed to complete our task.

The Brent crew

And so on to the Autumn Bird Count. We pick a day in each migration season to count all the migrants and see how many species we can record in total. We usually get a good turnout as it’s quite a social event as well so this year’s event was on Saturday 3rd. I typically start pre-dawn to listen out for owls and I left home at 5.10 in plenty of time. However despite checking out the best areas while it was still dark the local Tawnies kept quiet.

I headed over towards North Marsh to check out the corvid roost but heard Jackdaw before I got there so instead I went straight to the hide. Sometimes we get roosting waders and terns which fly off at first light so it’s always worth checking early. Today wasn’t that day and there were just the regular four waders and Common Tern. I did find a pair of Wigeon though which were our first this autumn.

Pair of Wigeon

Once I caught up on all the water-birds I headed back out, this time to the dump to see if there was any visible migration. It’s been a really slow start to the vis-mig season this year, probably because of the high temperatures. Needless to say there was nothing moving this morning so when I received a message about a Little Owl that had just been found I went over to have a look. Unfortunately it had dropped down out of view but at least it was on the day list. I wandered back over the playing fields and bumped into a Wheatear, my first here this year and another good one for the day.

Distant Wheatear on the playing fields

With other birders arriving and spreading out across the area it didn’t take too long for more good birds to be found. On the dump there was a Whinchat and Spotted Flycatcher. I was back in the hide when a passerine dropped in and landed on the reeds in front of us – another Whinchat. Simon had found a possible Pied Flycatcher on the North Bank so I went straight along to look for it. I saw it briefly perched up before it went out the back. He also had two Spot Flys there which I was more interested in as I still needed it for my London Year List. A minute later one popped up and became Number 178, my last easy bird of the year.

Meanwhile, back to the Birdcount – we were doing well but still needed a few common birds and some more migrants so I created a target list. I went for a walk along the North Bank down to the dam and added a Lesser Whitethroat. I also saw a possible Sedge Warbler where there’d been one earlier in the week but it was totally silhouetted so couldn’t nail it. We never did find one. 

Raptors started getting up late in the morning and we managed five species between us including a flock of 12 Common Buzzards and four separate Red Kites along with Sparrowhawk, Kestrel and Peregrine. We often get Hobby on these counts but couldn't find one today.

By now it was early afternoon and I wanted to get home to watch the finals of The Hundred so took the path along the south side of the reservoir in the hope of adding something different. I often get Chaffinch there but didn’t today and it was another common bird we missed. Now back home watching the cricket, I popped out between the innings and finally got one of my local Collared Doves and with a couple of late additions (Water Rail and Little Egret) we took our total to 79 species, tying the all time record set in 2014. I finished the day on 68 species which is one of my highest counts. It would have been more but I forgot to look for Shoveler when I was in North Marsh!