January birding

Writing this blog on the last day of January has made me realise I've been so busy this month that this is my first blog of 2025. Most of the month has been spent birding in London where I've managed to see 107 species, the vast majority in East London.

Dagenham Chase

I managed nine visits in January although a few of those were at dusk looking for night/crepuscular birds. I managed to get both Barn and Little Owls but still need to try again for Tawny Owl and Woodcock. It's been a little slow for diurnal birds this month with the best being a Bullfinch that flew over calling as well as our semi-regular drake Red-crested Pochard.

Rainham Marshes

I've not been here as often this month as I would normally as I've been visiting other sites so have only seen 78 species in my seven trips. It's been a fairly quiet month here for birds at Rainham with no real highlights with my best bird being Great Egret.

Great Egret

King George V Reservoir

This site has hosted a lot of good birds this month so I decided it was time to get a permit from Thames Water. I've visited twice so far and still need to make a further visit this winter for some of the birds I've not yet caught up with. It's a really large reservoir and I've so far avoided walking all the way around, instead just going up the East side. 

KGV Res or The George as it's often called

The stars of the show this month have been the divers and grebes with two Great Northern and one Black-throated Diver, and three Black-necked and a Slavonian Grebe. There's also been a drake Scaup (which I've seen) and a drake Smew (which I haven't).

Black-throated Diver

Black-throated and Great Northern Diver

Great Northern Diver

A pair of Goldeneye

Slavonian Grebe

Tooting Common

I ventured across the Thames into South London early in January to Tooting to see the long-staying Ferruginous Duck. It rained all morning and was cold and dreary so I didn't spend a lot of time exploring the common.

Ferruginous Duck

Harefield Gravel Pits

I also made a rare visit to Northwest London. I've not been back many times since I moved away from there two years ago. This time was to Harefield, a site I'd never been to before. It's not well served by public transport but I took the Met Line to Hillingdon and walked the rest of the way. It took a while to find the overwintering Red-necked Grebe as it was sleeping in a corner that wasn't visible from most of the pit.

Red-necked Grebe

Wanstead Flats

I was over The Chase with Sam when the news of a Tundra Bean Goose at Wanstead broke so we decided to drive straight over as it's not that far. We found it feeding with a large flock of Egyptian Geese so not the usual flock of wild geese that Beans often associate with. Although wary, it allowed a reasonably close approach, certainly the best views I've ever had of one anywhere in Europe.

Tundra Bean Goose

I also visited Beam Parklands, Becton Creekside, Bonnetts Wood, Fairlop CP, Hainault Forest and Ingrebourne Valley in January, all East London sites. Hainault got me most of the woodland birds such as Nuthatch and Treecreeper while my trip to Fairlop ensured I saw Golden Plover in London this year as they can be difficult elsewhere. I also popped in to Regent's Park for the Mandarin Ducks and an abortive attempt for the Little Owl.

I only made two trips outside of London this year, one to Chetney Marsh in Kent and the other one was abroad for a weekend. I travelled over on the ferry from Harwich to The Hook with some of my Chase pals on Friday night. We then drove through a very foggy Netherlands and on another ferry to Texel. We parked up by the coast and went up to the seawall where the fog had reduced visibility to about a hundred metres. 

A foggy Texel, there were birders from Ireland, Belgium, Denmark, France and Spain as well as UK and Dutch birders

Our quarry was a drake Spectacled Eider that spent most of its time just far enough away to be invisible in the fog. Luckily it came closer a couple of times so we did manage to see it. It's an exceptionally rare bird in Europe, hardly ever leaving the high Arctic so it was well worth making the effort for. We even had time to stop and look for a Baikal Teal on the way back to the ferry, another rare duck in Europe, this one originating in Russia and wintering in SE Asia. The only downside was the fog prevented me getting any photos.

Netherlands in Winter

February 28. After nearly two years of no overseas trips, it was time to venture abroad again with a short European trip. I booked on the Naturetrek trip to The Netherlands and we all met up at St Pancras. The continuing pandemic meant lots of additional form-filling and  the need to get a certificate showing a negative covid test although this seemed unnecessary as no one then asked to see it! A double passport check was required as a result of Brexit which added to the really long queues.

Eventually we got through the formalities and there was time to relax and have a coffee and Danish in the cafe before boarding the 11am train. This was my first time on Eurostar and we soon whizzed past the spots I know such as Rainham and Swanscombe then plunged into Kent and through the tunnel for twenty minutes before arriving in France. We stopped at Lille, then into Belgium, stopping at Brussels and finally we got off at Rotterdam.

We strolled over to the car hire and were soon on our way out of the city and on to our first birding stop at Battenoord Harbour. The target here was quickly located, a flock of large pink things which were soon identified as Greater and Chilean Flamingos, the latter being an introduced, self-sustaining population. The last time I saw these birds they were in their natural home in South America so this felt a bit like cheating! Among other birds here were our first, and certainly not our last, Barnacle Geese. With the light fading we drove to our hotel and had a bit of time to relax before dinner.

Chilean & Greater Flamingos

Typical Dutch scene - Flamingos and Windmills

March 1st. The following morning we were out before breakfast and crossed over the road onto the dunes and had a look at the sea. There was a flock of Red-throated Divers, Eider, Common Scoter and an obliging Slavonian Grebe. We left after breakfast and went exploring the fields and coastline of this southern part of the country.

Slavonian Grebe

More introduced birds were found, this time Bar-headed Goose and Black Swan among the hordes of wild geese. Interspersed among them were several Spoonbills, Great Egrets and plenty of waders.

Barnacle Geese

Spoonbills

We popped into a nice bakery for lunch then spent some time on the coast where there was a decent sized flock of 60 Purple Sands and a similar number of Red-throated Divers. At another site further north we saw our first Goshawk and a Peregrine flushing all the wildfowl. Huge numbers of waders, mostly godwits and plovers flew in from the coast and landed in the fields.

Bakery

Purple Sandpiper

Waders

It was a long drive to our next hotel and we arrived at 7.30pm so went straight into dinner.

Hotel

March 2nd. Pre-breakfast birding was a walk around the woods at the back of the hotel. Among the commoner species seen was an obliging Short-toed Treecreeper. We then went exploring the goosefields around Noordeinde where the numbers of Barnacles were in the tens of thousands. Among a flock of White-fronted Geese we found two Tundra Bean Geese.

Tundra Bean Geese in foreground; White-fronted Geese in background

A few Smew were seen in the wider ditches and I picked up a White Stork as we drove along a main road. A bit later I found a White-tailed Eagle soaring so we screeched to a halt and all bundled out. Luckily it continued soaring around for everyone to get great views of this huge flying barn-door.

 As it was a nice sunny day we decided to have our lunch outside at the cafe. This also meant we could carry on birding as there were Smew on the river. We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the reserve, seeing another White-tailed Eagle, Willow Tit, a distant Hen Harrier and large herds of Red Deer.

Willow Tit

White-tailed Eagle

Smew

Red Deer

March 3rd. We did our own pre-breakfast walk before breakfast and found a tree with a few Hawfinches in. As we watched more flew in and eventually there were 25 gathered there. We spent the day checking out the goosefields around Workum and Makkum and finally found a Red-breasted Goose in amongst the Barnies. Among the many Common Buzzards we found a single Rough-legged.

Hawfinch

White-fronted and Barnacle Geese

As we drove along the coast road I saw a Bittern feeding in a ditch but as we pulled off to stop we sank into the soft mud. We spent the next ten minutes trying to extricate the vehicle until we were rescued by a kind Dutchman who had seen it all before. Everyone had brief views of the Bittern which decided to play a game of hide-and-seek before we carried on back to the hotel. After dinner it was time to fill out the dreaded online passenger location form to allow us back into the UK and most of us struggled with this piece of bureaucracy.

Bittern

March 4th. Our last day and a few of us went to see the Hawfinches again before breakfast. We loaded the van and headed off to our first stop on the southbound leg. This was a forested area with an open heath, resembling the Brecks. Apart from the Black Woodpecker that was calling and briefly seen by the car park! From the largest European woodpecker, we went to the smallest and found a pair of Lesser Spots. A flock of Crossbills flew over and there were several Woodlarks singing, one of which conveniently landed next to us.

Lesser Spotted Woodpecker

Woodlark

A pair of Goshawks got up over the trees and then one did a flypast, allowing us exceptionally close views. It landed on the edge of the clearing and as we tried to locate it a flock of four Cranes flew over.

Goshawk

We carried on further south for our final stop on the goosefields to look for Lesser White-fronts but to no avail as there were very few geese around. Soon it was time to pack up and go and we headed back into Rotterdam to check in for the mid-afternoon train back to the UK. We saw 122 species between us including vast flocks of geese, making it an excellent short break.

 

Barnacle Goose