Every so often I find a reason to visit another locality and today was Lockwood Res, Walthamstow E17. I had only previously visited this area once before in 1985 to see at Woodlark somewhere near here but my memory is such that I'm unable to remember where it was exactly?Direction to the site were pretty straightforward thus avoiding the Spooner spears one can see above that clearly are not to be climbed over, and it's much better to use the correct entrance walk a mile and maintain the contents of your body thus preventing leaving any entrails on the fence for the Moorhens to peck at. The above have had their faces covered to maintain anonymity.
In the words of that lovely 'NOT' song Stay another day by E17 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4jLfCjlYD0 the Dusky Warbler above awaited my arrival and showed very well through a scope after a wet one and a half hours wait in the pouring rain. This represented the first record for the London LNHS recording area and testament to Lol Bodinis' dedication to patchworking that this Asian gem was found. Located by it's strident call the bird was probably the most showy Dusky I've ever seen in the UK apart from a very confiding one at SBBO in Tim Bagnell's hand and at Dunge in Ian Henshaws' hand. crippling views.Incredibly this had been predicted as a new bird for London only a week or so before by none other than Tony Morris .
The crowd watch on as the bird feeds happily along the concrete canal wall and adjacent vegetation rarely going out of view.
The locality of the bird, just shows anything can turn up anywhere and another great bird to add to the long list of goodies in this area.
Pre Dusky tacking I saw this very wet Fox looking for an easy meal. At the other end of the Res a Slav Grebe showed well
Before going home I visited Mansfield Park which enables you to see Willian Girling Res. From here I got fantastic hubble views of a Great northern Diver, 17 Black necked Grebes and 11 Goldeneye, but no Red-necked Grebe. A great few hours out, another new area visited, shame about the weather.
4 comments:
When was your last British Dusky Barry?
Hi Josh
I guess it must have been Bishopstone 2007.
Barry
I got the wrong site though!
I saw that Woodlark too Barry. My memory is pretty shot also, but I know it was definitely Walthamstow Res's - the ones on the other (south?) side of the road.
Now look, you've made me get the notebook out! Jan 19th it was, but I'm none the wiser re which res. Later that day I saw 24 White-fronts in the Colne Valley, and 4 Velvets, a Merg, a Scaup and 2 Black-throats on Wraysbury Res. A touch of cold-weather movement in progress if I recall!
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