Daily Yaffle: July - slow start to autumn

July is often a transitional month, jumping around between summer and autumn depending on the weather. Waders and gulls are the most obvious birds on the move and towards the end of the month the first warblers pop up in hedgerows.

I often start this month with a trip down to Oare Marshes in Kent for the regular Bonaparte's Gull that arrives in July for the autumn. We go by train to Faversham and walk to Oare. This year it didn't take long to find the Bonaparte's as it was the first gull we looked at!

Bonaparte's Gull

Our timing was excellent as it flew off not long afterwards. Along the shore was a single Bar-tailed Godwit and there were plenty of Black-tails on East Fleet but there weren't many other waders. The weather started to deteriorate so rather than look for the Dainty Damselflies we headed back early to Faversham.

This was my only trip outside East London this month and with a lot of sunny weather I decided to stay local and continue recording butterflies and dragonflies on my various local patches. I didn't ignore the birds though and July often produces a mega. This year it was a Franklin's Gull at Crossness, just the second record in London, the first also being at Crossness way back in 2000.

As I saw that bird I didn't drop everything and go for it but wondered if I could see it from Rainham. When I was exploring London sites last year I came across Three Crowns at Rainham, a viewpoint of the Thames just off Ferry Lane South. I figured I might be able to see the gulls off the outflow so I headed there after the weekend. It was right on the edge of telescope range but after an hour I saw the Franklin's Gull fly around and also picked it up on the river. The gulls moved closer into the bank so became harder to see as the tide dropped and despite being joined by several other keen Rainham listers we couldn't pick it up again over the next couple of hours.

The Franklin's Gull became my 200th species at Rainham and I have also seen 210 at Brent Reservoir. While there are many other birders who've seen a lot more than me at Rainham I don't think anyone else has recorded the double-hundred at two London sites.

I was back at Rainham the next day to look (or listen) for a reported Quail. Unfortunately it didn't become my 201st species as it had stopped calling by the time I arrived. I visited Rainham quite a few times this month and on one day jammed into a superb flock of 11 Wood Sandpipers which was enough to merit an exclamation mark on the Birdguides message. However, it wasn't even a record count in London which is 16 at Rammey Marsh.

The last couple of years have seen a summer heatwave and all the grasslands are brown and crispy and most of the pools at Rainham have become dust bowls. Luckily there's been enough rain this year to change all that. I've even seen a couple of 'rogue' Pyramidal Orchids flowering where they don't belong - at Rainham and Dagenham Chase. The latter was probably a first for the site and I even managed to get my photo of it published in the Romford Recorder, not quite National Geographic but it'll do!

Pyramidal Orchid, Rainham Marshes

Pyramidal Orchid, Dagenham Chase

I visited Bedfords Park in Havering with Sam to look for insects. There were a lot of dragonflies & damselflies but it was a struggle to get them perched to identify them. We did manage a Lesser Emperor which was the first time I've managed to see one in the UK although it is a recent colonist. We also visited Havering CP for butterflies but it had clouded over by the time we arrived so didn't see much.