counting coots

You might think from my scribbles and rants, dear reader, that there is little other than coots here. However, yesterday lunchtime I clocked up 24 mainly resident species, which is a good enough opportunity to run down what is hot, and what is not. This listing follows the system recommended by Voous (1977), but when he was a bit pissed up, yeah?



Mute Swan. 1 pair, on a nest for a couple of weeks now.



Tufted Duck. 11 pairs kicking about on the wandle, maybe more by the barges. Unlikely to breed.



Grey Heron. 2 regular with occasional others. Breeding not suspected.



Coot. 4 pairs. 1 pair more than last year. The extra pair have been forced onto the Thames. Successful breeding unlikely.



Herring Gull. Mainly non-breeding birds with the occasional adult. If they are nesting, I don't know where.



Wood Pigeon. I know of one nest being built - I suspect there are a couple more, and would be surprised if there are five or more.



Grey Wagtail. Not so prominent over the last few weeks, but did find a male yesterday in good habitat so hopefully the female was on a nest. Good prospects.



Wren. 3 or 4 singers - nesting suspected and likely.



Robin. Half a dozen singing throughout the patch. Likely breeder.



Carrion Crow. One nest known. At least 30 birds in the wider area. Will succeed in breeding.



Greenfinch. Common overwinter, but don't know if the noisy sites they liked then will be good for breeding. Tentative on their success.

Canada Goose. They fly up the river, they fly down the river.

Cormorant. Autumn numbers peaked at 93, but there are a few around but they don't much look like breeding adults to me.

Moorhen. 3 pairs. Have nested, but may have failed.

Lesser Black Backed Gull. 3 or more adults knocking around. Possible breeders but they need to hurry it up a bit.

Feral Pigeon. Don't care.

Ring-necked Parakeet. A few around - probably got a hole in Wandsworth Park somewhere.

Pied Wagtail. Occasionally seen, but wouldn't be surprised if they are tucked up in a corner.

Dunnock. 3 territories? Gawd knows how many birds, but should succeed.

Blackbird. At least 4 males around, almost guaranteed success.

Magpie. At least one pair, likely to nest but don't know if they will succeed.

House Sparrow. One nest known, same as last year - likely to succeed. There seems to be many more birds than nests.

Goldfinch. Present, but fuck knows what they are up to.

Others regulars but not suspected of breeding - Great Crested Grebe, Gadwall pair last week, GBB and the occasional fly by Black Headed Gull. Swifts have been seen in Wandsworth over the weekend so they should be around soon, followed by not bloody much else.


So here is a Heron, a chair, a fence post and a stone.

Yes - it's Bananacoot!



Quite simple this one. Apple cores and banana skins get chucked in the river when I have finished with them. Gulls ignore apple cores and everything ignores banana skins.



Except coots.



They go wild for an apple core and are quite amusing when they peck at them in the water and they bounce back onto their heads. And yesterday, a pair went wild for a banana skin.

I've even seen them tackle a floating orange. Now that was funny.

Look, if you had a patch like this one you'd watch coots far too much aswell.

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.

Mist floating down the river, Ripperesque.

Suffice to say, I didn't see many birds. I did however, see a coot.

Yes, they are back. Assumed to be brood two. Much less inclined to move when on the nest so I cannot tell you how many eggs there are. The tides have not been especially high this week, so they may not have been flooded out, but I expect that this is just a temporary situation.

Note in picture two that the nest area has obtained a new addition, in the guise of an upturned trainer. Nike for those that actually care about these things.

This got me thinking about how much detritus I have seen floating down the Wandle (this river was so abused from the time of the industrial revolution that it was declared dead in the sixties - so what I get now is a vast improvement) and in true Generation Game stylee I present you the list. This is just for the Wandle, not the Thames where the list starts to include boats and guns and things. I shit you not.

A used condom

A shoe

A ski

Four car tyres

Beer cans

A filing cabinet, with drawers

Footballs

A shopping trolley (Sainsbury's)

Beer bottles

Tennis balls

A microwave oven

A cuddly toy

A lifebouy

Empty cider bottles

Traffic cones

A pair of gloves

A junkie's hypodermic

Flourescent jackets

A mattress

A colour television.

Give us a twirl Isla, or whatever your name is.

The stupidest thing about this list is that I don't have to make any of it up.

Finally, a big shout out to the London boroughs of Wandsworth, Merton and Croydon for the assistance in making this post happen and fly tipping into the river. I couldn't have done it without you guys!

Eat these facts!


Fact - there was a Blackcap singing in the trees by the Hurlingham Club at lunchtime.



Fact - I have never heard or seen them in this area before.



Fact - that makes it a patch tick.



Fact - that makes it 72 for the patch. Seventy two!



Fact - that makes it 50 for the year.

Fact - er, result.



Fact - um...

Fact - this semi-albinistic Blackbird has held it's territory from last year.





That'll do on the facts I reckon.

Smack bang in the middle of my patch, right now, an episode of 'The Bill' is being filmed. Obviously they wanted some gritty urban wasteland to shoot in, and that part of my patch fits it perfectly.

So if you see a dodgy looking birder not finding any birds in the background shot of an episode of a programme that you don't watch....

The dampness subsided, the sun came out, the temperature rose and the wind stayed down. Yup, yesterday lunchtime was ideal weather for watching high flying raptors bumming about in thermals. Or as they are known in Fulham - Herring Gulls. Bloody things.



Observe the Tuftie below dear reader.

It thinks it is a Mallard, or at the very least it fancies a Mallard.

It was following these two around the Thames all day, and unlike all the other Tufties round here (which are knocking about in the Wandle) it actually got out of the water - very unusual.

It flies when they fly, feeds when they feed, fights when they fight; damn it - it even cries when they cry man... he's definitely got 'issues'. But he is vulnerable - and needs to be careful. This is a big bad city, and there are a fair few big gay Mallard out on the Thames that would just love to have a piece of sweet Tuftie action...

There was my first hint of a passage bird this morning when I thought that I heard a Common Sandpiper, which I get at the beginning and end of the summer. I thought I did, I might not have. Usually once they call they can be seen skipping across the river when the tide is up, but I couldn’t find one. Will do soon I expect, as they come through here each year. Migrancy has not quite got here yet (while I’ve been here anyway) – but I am hopeful for something this lunchtime. It has been misty all morning and it is beginning to warm up and the sun is coming out and the tide will be down too. There was a Black Kite over the Gherkin the other day, so the eyes will be skyward! Stayed tuned kids – for the next instalment of What Thing Didn’t See Today!

This is a picture of a species that I will not see today in a place that I am not going to. It's the first in a series of guerilla type picture posting where I add pictures from my holiday to posts about my patch as they are more interesting.

Yes, dear reader, I have returned. I have been away, and I did do some birding, but I will resist the long and perhaps tedious 'lookwhereIwentonholiday' report. It is perhaps worth noting that in my absence, my Fatbirder ranking has turned to shit. From the position of nearly breaking into the hallowed 500, I came to find this humble site at 787 this morning, which personally I find quite funny.

Suffice to say, I Digimonocularised this, no honest - it's nearly half decent.

Also, I refuse to believe that Crossbills actually exist.

And at lunchtime I am going to look for Coots.

Yesterday was the day that all the passage birds came through my patch, and it will continue again today. The fly through Osprey, the Boney knocking about with the last of the Black Heads, the first singing Chiffchaff and of course the over shot Hoopoe. I know this will have happened because I didn't get out yesterday and nor will I today (thanks to the supervision of the removal of an RSJ yesterdayand a bidness lunch today).


So instead of an idiosynchratic take on what I have seen in the last 24 hours, have some pictures of a Heron from earlier in the week. My field craft was so awesome in my approach to this one, that I totally freaked out a bloke reading the paper in a quiet spot that he thought I was a wierd stalker and promptly upped sticks and farked orph.

They have been taken with my perhaps unique technique of Digi-monocularising™, or Digimonning™. This technique involves sticking the camera at the end of a monocular and taking two hundred photos in the hope that one is half decent.

Well that didn’t last long did it? Spring sprung and then pissed off again. Strong cold winds, dull skies, chilly hands etc, but now there are no gulls to while away the time on the river bank with. I ventured out first thing anyway, cursing to myself about the lack of avifauna – but the reality was that in a short 20 minute spell I did manage to pick up 18 species (including a pair of Gadwall on the river), and a singing Dunnock shortly after that. So it’s not really as bad as all that I guess.

Here is a new photo from this morning of the attenuation ponds by the new build on the saaarf side. I have pics of this area through it’s development and intend to have a full and detailed post/report on the said ponds (new habitat! Wahey!) which will be stunningly exciting, and possibly free of anglo-saxon invective.

And the big blokes in the boat? They are in some race down the Thames next month, in which they, or the other team, will win. Again.

It would seem that over the weekend the vast majority of the Black Headed Gulls have all but disappeared – which is a harbinger of springy type events as one assumes that they are off to breed. On this stretch of the river at low(ish) tide in the winter, there would be two or three hundred along the foreshore along with the smattering of Common, Herring and BB’s. Today I spent an hour on the bank without seeing a single specimen land. A half dozen or so flew over the bridge, but that was it.

In the spirit of post continuity, here is a Grebe.

Thought I'd check up on the coots again today.

Still in place, still gathering nest material, still sitting...



...and they have lost eggs already.

As I left, the tide was rising...

If this follows the normal procedure, they will mate again shortly, the nest will be improved and raised. If they are lucky enough to raise it higher there still could be success.

Subsequent to yesterdays observation of the mentalist Coots nest material collection, I wandered further up the river today to have a look to see if they are actually making a nest and what stage they are at.

Well, they are making a nest in the upturned shopping trolley and ski ensemble as they did last year (assuming that it is the same pair).




Already they are sitting on the nest.


And they have four eggs in the nest.






Which are doomed.




As I follow the drama (a sort of ornithological film noir), I shall of course update you dear reader. When I see the blog followers withdrawing and the Fatbirder ranking heading back towards four figures, I’ll know that you’ve had enough.

In the meantime, have an arty farty pic of a Grey Wag from yesterday.