Was I the year tick?
On the way to the shop on Saturday morning, in a set of playing fields in Greenford, I thought it best to stop and check out the thrushes that were milling about, and found 39 Redwing, 12 Fieldfares, a Mistle Thrush and 3 Goldfinches on the ground too. Highest counts I've had round here by a long long way. My previous best for Redwing was 2 when I did a TTV on Ealing Common so this was a great find.
Froze my tits off in the garden on Sunday morning, but did manage to get a year tick when a Green Woodpecker piped up after a while. Other than that, Chaffinches are singing, the pair of Dunnocks are still knocking about, but I reckon that the local Wren has croaked in the harsh weather as over the course of an hour and a half, I heard or saw nothing. I have, however, worked out exactly where the boundary of the two Robin territories are - and they are split straight down the middle of the garden. This photo shows the males fronting up a bit. Too early in the year I guess for a full blown scrap - but they are starting to make themselves known to each other.
I've also put on a (rubbish) pic of a Parakeet that was one of a really bloody noisy group, but then they are not renowned for being a quiet species. Wake the neighbours up lads! Perhaps this one was looking for a nest site??
Sunday afternoon brought a trip to the Brent Reservoir in the glorious sunshine. We walked past a couple of walker toff peoples and the man responded by seeing me all decked out in the finest german optics and italian aluminium by asking the question "Did you see the bird watcher" as if I were the quarry of their investigations. Did I conform to the picture in their human nature of the city field guide? Subspecies perhaps? Quite strange.
Lots of ducks, Shovelers looking great in the sun, plenty of Pochard, Teal and Gadwall, and in the distance I found over a dozen Snipe. Which is a patch, year and London tick and thus quite satisfactory, unlike this piss poor digiscoping effort.
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