Thursday, April 08, 2010
It is well documented that tired migrants will often use drilling platforms out at sea to rest on when on their migration, especially in more inclement weather. It is well documented that I don't see many (or perhaps any) migrant birds in this patch.
Put these two facts together, and I reckon it could all change because of this...
That's right kids, someone has gone and stuck an oil rig in the middle of the Thames right by Wandsworth Bridge. I shit you not. Alright it might not be an oil rig, but to the layman it really really does look like one. And it wasn't there yesterday.
There is nobody on it. It is just sitting there in all it's Mary Celeste like incongruous isolation doing nothing more than promoting questions amongst the commuters as they pass over the bridge. They are generally along the lines of 'What the...?', moving towards 'How the...?' or at the extreme end of the imaginations 'Is this how the Pharoah is going to pay the debt off at Craven Cottage?. I asked some nearby and busy looking cockney workmen if they knew anything about it, but they knew nothing either.
Intriguing for sure. The reality is something to do with a super sewer. And it is going to be noisy. Great.
Kept this goose interested though.
A Goose doing intrigued.
Friday, December 04, 2009
Yes this is about Starlings again, rightly so. The media seem to have been quite keen on Starlings this week, but only really for the big shows that they put on at roosting time and rightly so, but the Wandsworth Bridge birds are not very good at this. They don’t spend too much time in the air once at the site and get into place reasonably quickly. Why is this so?
Helicopters.
Just down river from Wandsworth Bridge there is a heliport. The helicopters use the river as an initial navigation aid (or so it would seem) and come over the bridge at no more than a couple of hundred feet. Just the kind of height that a nice flock of Starlings would like to wheel around and give a show to a hardy patch birder.
That's my theory anyway.
On Tuesday however this was all changed when a Sparrowhawk was showing interest in the murmuration. They stayed out and made a couple of half decent groups in the air, but stayed quite dispersed within the flock rather than the tight knit version they normally have. And they climbed - higher than I've seen them round here. Thankfully no helicopters came by and once the raptor realised that it wasn't going to get a meal it left and they all piled in under the bridge.
The obligatory photograph of a bird that I have not been talking about follows...
A Cormorant doing that thing that they do. With the wings and all that.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Left home this morning, in fog.
Got to work, no fog. Lots of sun.
Was going to write something for your delectation dear reader, but thought better of it and headed out to the river to catch something interesting in the early morning sun, as the fog had cleared. Swifts I hoped. Red Rumped Swallow I dreamed.
Instead, I was met by this apocalyptic scene.
Mist floating down the river, Ripperesque.
Suffice to say, I didn't see many birds. I did however, see a coot.
