East London and the Docks

As autumn progresses and fewer summer visitors are seen, I've been recording the changes on my local patches in East London. One of the more obvious signs of the season at the moment is the daily movement of Meadow Pipits, often lasting well into the afternoon. However, there's been very few finches moving and I've not seen a single Chaffinch so far on vis-mig. I guess it's down to the prevailing westerlies that are preventing them crossing the North Sea.

Barking Riverside

 I managed two visits since my last post, the first visit coincided with a low tide resulting in three Ringed Plovers, two Black-tailed Godwits and two Yellow-legged Gulls. The best bird was a Kingfisher flying along the Goresbrook, a patch-tick for me. The next visit was around high tide and the only wader was a single Common Sand. Shelducks are starting to return after departing for their annual moult. I still keep missing all the chats that get found here during the week. My best find on the second visit was a planter which I rescued and made full use of!

Beam Parklands

I've made weekly visits here as well, and like the latter site, have also added Kingfisher this month. This must be the time they disperse from their breeding grounds. One my last visit I saw a record 41 species which is pretty good for a smallish urban site. Once there's more birds moving on vis-mig I may be able to top this, so that's next month's challenge! I'm making an effort to photograph more birds at this site and started with the easy waterbirds.

Canada Geese (with photo-bombing pigeon!)

Coot

Greylag Goose

Mallard

Dagenham Chase

I've also made weekly visits here as well. I've been starting off in Fels Field as it looks good for chats but no luck yet. I'm expecting Stonechat to turn up here any day now which would be new for my patch-list, I'm currently stuck on 99 species. I also think it could be a good spot for vis-mig and have been getting regular Mipits over. With The Slack still dried up, there's no prospect of any waders but one new visitor here has been a quite striking melanistic Grey Heron. I can't call it a Black Heron as there's an African species with that name (AKA the Umbrella Bird).

Melanistic Grey Heron (on right)

Rainham Marshes

As with all the other sites mentioned, I've been here twice as well recently. Always on the wrong day though as a few good birds have been seen here in the last ten days including Long-tailed and Arctic Skuas, Guillemot and Lesser Spotted Woodpecker. Up to two Cattle Egrets have been showing well near to Purfleet Scrape but the Great Egrets have reduced to one which is still playing hide-and-seek.

Cattle Egret

Parsloes Park

I made only my second visit here after my first one in June. It's a local park in Dagenham within walking distance so a repeat visit in a different season should have added a few new birds. In the end I recorded a dozen new species including the expected Mipit and gulls which will likely over-winter. I didn't expect Little Egret which was feeding on the lakeside edge. It's an oddly managed lake as there's a ring of trees between the lake and the orbital path so it's very difficult to actually see anything on it. The local Greylag Goose flock had massively increased since my first visit and I counted 156 feeding on the grass.

Greylag Geese

I did manage to slot in several new sites during this period, starting with a visit to south London as I had some time before meeting friends in the Surrey Docks area.

Site 93: Canada Water, September 26th

This is an easy site to get to as it's right next to Canada Water tube station, leaving by the Shopping Centre exit. I've been here several times before including my first visit way back to see a Ring-necked Duck. It used to be a good site with breeding Common Tern and Reed Warbler but is currently being 'improved' which appears to be a euphemism for completely destroying it. All the reed-beds and scrub have been removed and at the moment you can't walk around it as two sides are being dug up.

Black-headed Gulls line one of the pontoons

Canada Water station looks like it fell off a Star Destroyer

There aren't many birds around now, even the Cormorants have given up and gone elsewhere. The only passerines I saw were two Crows circling one of the adjacent tower blocks.

Moorhen

Mute Swan

Pigeons

As it only took ten minutes to cover the site I had time to go somewhere else. I exited behind the shopping centre, past the cinema and onto Redriff Road. There's various entrances but I found one through the flats.

Site 94, Greenland Dock, September 26th

This is the largest of the remaining docks. Although it's quite hemmed in by buildings at the west end there are at least a line of trees around it so there's some habitat. 

Looking east down the dock

There were more birds than on Canada Water including a family of Great Crested Grebes which bred here this year.

Black-headed Gulls

Cormorant

One of the juvenile Great Crested Grebes

Tufted Duck

Two days later, I hopped on the bus to explore some more local sites. I took the 175 to Romford and then the 294 to the end of its route.

Site 95: Havering Country Park, September 28th

I took the path heading north from the bus stop which forms the western boundary of the park and there are several entrances into it. Rooks were feeding in the field on the west side where there is probably the best view over London I've seen.

Stunning views of London; the O2 is visible on the left

Wellingtonia Avenue

Farmland to the north

It's not the best time to visit a woodland to look for birds and I expect it's pretty good in spring but I did come across a reasonable selection of resident woodland birds including the local Rooks which are already pairing up.

Rooks

I didn't complete a full circuit as I needed to leave at the east end of Wellingtonia Avenue to get to the next site. I walked along the road through Havering-Atte-Bower which I'd also not visited before. I carried on east along Broxhill Road where the main entrance to the next site is.

Site 96: Bedfords Park, September 28th

Bedfords Lake

This has a wider range of habitats than the last place and I much preferred walking around here. There's patches of woodland, scrub and grass meadows. Not to mention a deer park. I think it's the first time I've actually heard a Red Deer rutting other than on Autumnwatch.

A very imposing stag

I also saw more birds here than in the country park although that was partly down to some water birds on the lake.

Coot

Moorhen

As well as the two I photographed, a Grey Heron flew over and a Cetti's Warbler called from the reed-bed.

Magpie auditioning for the Ministry of Silly Walks

I exited the park at the southern end and was about to look for a bus stop that would take me back when I noticed another park across the road so I decided to explore it instead.

Site 97: Rise Park, September 28th

The northern entrance is on Lower Bedfords Road and it's a fairly narrow parking running south down to the A12. It opens up towards the lower end where there's a butterfly meadow adjacent to a sports ground.

The path runs alongside a brook and is wooded on both sides

Butterfly meadow

There wasn't a great deal of bird life around and I only recorded a dozen species.

Woodpigeon

I exited at the southern end and headed west for a couple of minutes where I found a bus stop. I took the 103 which I see regularly around Rainham and Dagenham but hadn't been on before. I changed at Romford and took the 175 back home. I realised later that I could have crossed the A12 and gone into Rapheals Park but I'll save that for another day.

Expeditions to west London

I ventured away from East London twice in the first half of September. On the 2nd I headed back over to Brent Reservoir for their Autumn Bird Count, my first visit there since the spring count. It was nice to be back on the old patch and catch up with some of the Brent regulars. It was a bit of a quiet day but I did see Spotted Flycatcher and Red Kite which were both patch year ticks. Three days later I decided to try for the Red-backed Shrike.

Site 92: Osterley Farmland, September 5th

It was a long old ride on the tube from east to west London and I alighted at Osterley station, turned right and up Bassett Gardens to the access point. Instead of taking the right footpath to the park, I turned left and followed the path round behind Brentford FC's training ground.

The footpath follows the edge of this field

There's a good area of habitat here, plenty of light scrub and long grass. While waiting for the shrike to appear there were several migrant birds around here.

A Whinchat suddenly appeared on the fence and a little while later some of the other birders present located the shrike on the bushes the other side of the fence.

Red-backed Shrike

Red Kite

By now it was lunchtime and the temperature had soared into the 30s so I decided to head back home.

I spent the rest of the first half of the month visiting my various local patches. There has been a very obvious change of season with most of the summer visitors having now departed. I picked up my first Meadow Pipits on all of my new local areas and even had a few going over my garden. Siskins have also started moving and I've logged a few of those as well. The best bird I saw on visible migration during this period was an Osprey going over Dagenham Chase. 

With the loop now re-opened at Rainham Marshes, I was keen to get over there and try it out. I went over on the 13th, walking from Rainham station across Rainham West. The bird life has changed here as well with the arrival of the first Pintail of the season to add to the Wigeon that have already been here a few weeks. Two Cattle Egrets have arrived and are settling in for the winter.

The new walk allows access to pools that were not clearly visible before as well as Aveley Pool and I reckon there will be a decent rarity found there shortly. The Beardies are continuing to show well (at times) on the dragonfly pool.

Male Bearded Tit