More East London sites and an owl

April 29th: Brent Reservoir

As it was the Spring Bird Count at my old patch I decided to head back across London for the day and join in. I've always enjoyed participating in these big days at Brent, the only difference this time around was that I wasn't heading out pre-dawn to listen out for owls. Despite the later arrival time, I still managed a respectable 60 species with the group total being 71. It wasn't a good day for migration as the weather was probably too nice.

April 30th: Ingrebourne Valley

I took an early bus towards Rainham and alighted at Dovers Corner. It was a bit of an exploration as I didn't know if there was an access point to this end of the Ingrebourne Valley but I soon found an egress point at the car park for Ingrebourne Hill. This gave me access to the southern end of the valley which I hadn't visited before. I walked along an abandoned (?) cycle track beside some lakes which I think are known as the Albion Pools. There's also a large reedbed which seems to be an extension of Berwick Ponds.

I kept on walking East until I reached an area that I recognised, which is what I refer to as Mallard Lake. I carried on eastwards through Berwick Glades and realised I wasn't far from a new site for the year so decided to give it a visit.

Site 66: Bonnett's Wood

I had been through a section of this site last year on my way back from seeing some wild geese at Gerpins Lane but this was my first visit in spring. I walked a loop around the new area that was acquired in 2012 which has a lot of young trees planted by Forestry England.

There was a lot of birds around including Cuckoo, Lesser Whitethroat, Skylark and woodpeckers. Overhead a Common Buzzard was soaring around and a Kestrel shot through.

Buzzard

At the end of the loop I walked back across Berwick Glade and into Hornchurch Country Park.

May 1st: Cheshunt GPs

I met up with John & Janet for our regular spring trip to the Lea Valley. From Cheshunt station we headed towards Seventy Acres Lake, seeing a couple of Garden Warblers along the way. 

Garden Warbler

We then crossed over the river to the substation island and were soon listening to a Nightingale. This has become the last bastion of these birds in the London Area and they could easily join the long list of birds that have ceased breeding in the capital such as Tree Sparrow, Turtle Dove, Tree Pipit and Willow Tit to name just a few of the recent ones.

We decided it was time for cake o'clock and went to the excellent cafe at Holyfield Hall Farm. Whilst sitting outside with a large slab of cake we saw Red Kite and Common Buzzard. At this point John received news of a possible Long-eared Owl on his patch so we decided to head straight back and go for it. It took one hour exactly from Cheshunt station to arriving on site.

Site 67: Stave Hill & Russia Dock Woodland

We walked the short distance from Canada Water station and entered into the site at Stave Hill which then turns into Russia Dock Woodland. One of the local birders had the owl pinned down but it had moved from where it was into a denser spot in the tree. However, its huge bulk and bushy ear tufts made it obvious that it was in fact some sort of Eagle-Owl rather than a Long-eared Owl. Better photos taken later revealed that this bird was in fact a Great Horned Owl, an obvious escape. It was still an impressive bird to see in this inner London site. It was reglarly mobbed by Crow sand Magpies but it just ignored them.

Great Horned Owl 

May 3rd

I started off at Dagenham Chase where the best sighting was watching a Hobby pursue a Sand Martin. I couldn't tell if it was successful or not as they flew behind the trees at the back of The Slack. A bit later on I saw a Peregrine circle over, two new falcons for my patch list. I decided to find the bridge over the railway line and explore a new area.

Site 68: Beam Valley Country Park

This site joins up Dagenham Chase and Beam Parklands where I visited last week, all of which are part of the Dagenham Corridor of green spaces.

Bridge over the railway which connects to Dagenham Chase

I had a look at the private fishing lake before exploring the rest of the site where there was a pair of Great Crested Grebes. It's quite a narrow site which runs down the west side of the River Beam. There is a footbridge which leads to a large open space, marked as Playing Field on the map which doesn't form part of the Country Park and appears to be unnamed. The lake at the southern end is also outside of the park's boundaries but both are best treated as part of the CP for recording purposes.

Squabbling Magpies

The southern border of the site is the A125 and I crossed over here and entered Beam Parklands. I followed the path along the river all the way to the southern end and then went west by the lake and out on Ballards Road. As this was just my second visit here I did manage to see two new species: Canada Goose and Great Spotted Woodpecker.