Friday, May 08, 2009
Proof indeed that birds can hatch eggs on my patch, rather than just watch them float off or sink. And I take back my condescending comments about Canada Geese just flying up and down the river, some of them sit still long enough to produce offspring. Like what they are supposed to yeah? I managed to see three little yellow heads over the boards, but would expect there to be a few more, and they are not that old by the look of them.
The birds are on the barges moored off Wandsworth Park. I ventured over there today with the intention of checking out whether or not there is any GBB action, as there was last year – but that particular barge was full of idle cormorants and loafing teenage Herring Gulls which are no doubt right up for a bit of gosling for their tea.
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
Not a bad haul this lunchtime. Pretty much started off by bumping into another birder! Blummenell! Turns out that she’s being walking the path since the seventies, and can remember a time when she would get excited by seeing a Cormorant!
Anyhow, she carried on to Barnes and I stopped at Wandsworth Park and for a while it was wildfowl dominating the place. About 50 Tufties knocking about, a couple of drake Pintail and the usual Mallard. Sneaking about amongst them was a full blown Aylesbury Duck (just the sort that goes in the pot – yummy!) and a mutant Goose that I have seen a couple times before – it looks like a cross between a Canada and White-fronted. I was checking out a couple of Greylags when eight more flew in, and just before I left the riverbank eight Canada Geese flew over! Before leaving the park altogether, I cast an eye over the Thrushes that were feeding on the grass where the snow was thawing – Blackbird, a couple of Mistle Thrushes and a Redwing! Not just a year tick but a bloody patch tick! Here are some rubbish pics of the little beauty!
Thursday, January 08, 2009
Dunnock started singing this morning with some gusto, which was a slightly tardy addition to the year list for the patch to put it at 37 against the monster total of 66 in 2008.
Lunchtime was good and bad. I walked all the way to Wandsworth bloody Park to try and find (and take a dodgy photo of) a Yellow Legged Gull that I saw on Monday. When I arrived, because the tide had only just started to expose the foreshore, all the gulls were on the far side of the fucking river! Bastards.
Anyway, found a Little Grebe on the way (38 for the year) and there were Egyptian Geese on the far bank to give me 39. If you look really hard at the far bank in the picture attached (god knows whereabouts it will appear in the post), behind the barge with the writing on - you can see Egyptian Geese.
No, honestly you can.
