Mostly Rainham

May 4th: Chobham Common

For Star Wars Day I birded out of London for only the second day this year. I met up with John & Janet at Waterloo and we took the train to Longcross in Surrey. The station is right next to Chobham Common and we try to make a visit here every spring. Each visit produces different birds but so far we've been lucky in getting our three target birds: Woodlark, Tree Pipit and Dartford Warbler. Last year we managed to get them all within twenty minutes. It took a bit longer this year but we did manage all three. Tree Pipits were the most obvious of the trio.

May 5th-8th: Rainham Marshes

I made an early start on Friday 5th and walked across Rainham West and up to Serin Mound. I hadn't been there for very long when I scanned across History Pool and found a gangly black-and-white wader. It may be one of the easiest rarities to identify but there's still that rush of excitement when you realise you've just found a Black-winged Stilt!

Black-winged Stilt

I put the news out immediately and then attempted to photograph it. The pool is fairly distant so it's a real challenge to get a decent photograph of anything on it so I had to just settle for a record shot. After half-an-hour Fraser turned up on his way to work and had a look at the Stilt. After another 15 minutes more people started arriving and the twitch was on! I spent most of the morning here before having a look at the bay. I'd been expecting a Stilt to show up as there's been another influx of them this spring and this individual was the fifth one at Rainham which makes this site far and away the best for this species in London.

I was back at Rainham the following day to participate in a Bird Race. My team was pretty inexperienced so there was a lot of learning going on during the day. Luckily the Stilt was still present which was a good one to get on the day. We also had Gropper, Cuckoo, Hobby, Whimbrel and Greenshank. Both teams finished on 76 species but as the rules were everyone in the team had to see or hear every bird our adjusted total was 73. It was a good fun day though.

The Stilt was still present on Sunday for its third day, an unprecedented stay for a spring bird as all the previous London ones had only stayed a day, the exception being a juvenile in autumn. My main target today was Sanderling which we ran out of time to see yesterday. Fortunately it also stayed and I soon picked it up in Aveley Bay. Ben had found a Garden Warbler along the entrance track so I popped along for that before going around the reserve.

On the extra Bank Holiday Monday I headed up to Serin Mound again but the Stilt wasn't there. It had gone for a fly around yesterday afternoon so I wasn't surprised that it had done a bunk. The Sanderling was in the bay again and I eventually managed to see the extremely elusive Wood Sandpiper that had turned up yesterday on History Pool. It was best viewed from the river wall but was out of view for long periods.

Site 69: Old Dagenham Park, May 9th

I decided to have a day around Dagenham and started off visiting a local park which is just west of the Beam Valley.

Weeping Willow

I entered the park just north of School Road and did a clockwise circuit. It's a typical town park with mostly open grassland but there are some good scrubby edges where there were two Whitethroats singing. A few geese were feeding in the middle of the park.

Canada Geese

Greylag Geese

At the end of my circuit I crossed over the road and went into Beam Parklands, then carried on walking north through Beam Valley CP and finally into Dagenham Chase. There weren't many new migrants coming in and it's starting to feel like spring is coming to an end.

Little Egret at Dagenham Chase