Walthamstow Marshes, an Oasis in an Urban Desert.

I wrote this a good few days ago, about a trip I made last Saturday with my good freind Bexx, to a gem of a reserve in the heart of North East London.

Today was a gorgeously sunny day, and I spent at least part of it in the back garden watching the Holly Blue butterflies, which must have just appeared. As the air cools and darkens I’m going to take the opportunity to share a trip to Walthamstow Marshes, an Olympics survivor and nature reserve, which I visited with my friend Bexx  a couple of days ago.

Walthamstow Marshes sits beside the River Lee and opposite a pub, somewhere in Hackney, or possibly Haringey,  in urban North-East London. Two railway lines cross the nature reserve and the well made, gravel paths are well trodden, indeed, it is not the kind of place one can go to be alone. However it is a wildlife oasis, set in the middle of the gritty urban jungle, and as such, not a bad place at all to escape the to, and a valuable asset to the local area.

On a grey Sunday, my friend Bexx and I decided to give the place a visit.  We’d passed it on our last stroll along the Lee, and had a drink in the Anchor and Hope opposite, a pub popular with the Lee’s narrow boat community, as well as ageing indie kids like us. On route we saw a couple of Common Terns over the river, apparently fishing, and several of the usual mallards, mute swans and Canada geese, which seem to thrive here. Upon arriving at the reserve, having walked for some time beside the Lee, we crossed the bridge and were immediately greeted  by a building housing a new (and temporary) basketball court. Signs promised that the land it used would be restored as open access green land “by October 2012,” but it was an incongruous addition to the otherwise surprisingly lush landscape.Graffiti on the bridge itself also expressed local resentment to the coming Games, and the heavy price the host boroughs have paid for it. Perhaps we should wait for the Olympic Park before we write off the event in terms of the environment, David Lindo, famous for his "urban birder" columns, reckons the habitat creation there has been pretty good. I imagine I will find out in time.

As we walked alongside a ditch, which according to signage hosts a rare fern called Adder’s Tongue, we could hear a blackbird and a reed warbler singing, and there were several swifts wheeling about, giving their gleeful, excited whistling calls, one of the most joyful sounds of summer to my mind.  Yellow flag bloomed in the ditch, and a blue flower I later learned was an introduced species and speciality of the Lee Valley called Russian Comfrey, was everywhere, alongside several escaped specimens of Oilseed Rape, a common crop grown for oil and animal feed.  It is the same yellow stuff which covers whole swathes of the countryside from now until mid June. Some fresh phragmites was beginning to emerge from the water, and the grasses were mostly of the bright green, broad and lush variety. A few stinging nettles, characteristic of nutrient rich soils peered out from among the waterside vegetation, and cow parsley thrived too, suggesting perhaps some mild nutrient enrichment, but not atypical of these flat, low river floodplains.

A railway bridge crosses the site not far from the Anchor and Hope, and a blue plaque advertised that this was where Alliot Vernon Roe first flew his triplane in the 1900s, becoming the first British man to fly a British designed and built aircraft. He assembled it under the arches. Beyond the arches a Kestrel was hovering. I realised that I like this place a lot.

At the next bridge we walked away from the river and through some scrub into an avenue lined with magnificent Horse Chestnuts with towering pink and white blossoms. Swifts circled above our heads and somewhere a robin was singing its heart out. The wild flowers here were pretty, but included introduced cultivars like Russian Comfrey, which we were introduced to by a kindly, if slightly eccentric pair of Botanists who we found standing among it. According to them it was introduced 200 years ago and now flourishes through the Lee valley. It has blue flowers, and was brought home from St Petersburg by a local landowner and keen gardener. Also among the plants were oilseed rape,  the big yellow Brassica famous for its EU subsidies, and cow parsley, a common plant of these nutrient rich grasslands. A couple of Linnets flew past, which struck me as unusual, to see such a farmland bird in the city, but beyond the railway was a field of horses, and a small riding school, still so close to Hackney and the city.

We saw a song thrush, sitting on a bush, singing, and a couple of whitethroats flying about.  There were a few green and goldfinches overhead. For birds nothing here was unfamiliar, but in concrete London these are things which are seldom encountered, and their presence underlined the importance of these urban oases.  Chiffchaffs and Willow Warblers sang, too. We had to pass under a couple of railway lines, with accompanying graffiti and concrete on the way. People walking in the opposite direction were mostly Londoners, and generally differed from the usual nature reserve crowd in their studious avoidance of any verbal communication, although the botanists were very freindly, as were several of the dogs.

The botanising couple recommended a trip to the Waterworks, and we headed where another small nature reserve, with plenty of interpretive signage, had apparently been created in a disused water purification facility. The route took us along a stretch of road, which had on the opposite side of it, numerous business premises, some of them vacant. It was quite jarring to leave the tranquillity of the Marshes nature reserve and find ourselves back in Hackney. In acknowledgement of the danger of leaving interpretive signage unattended at night in North East London, by the time we arrived, the heavy gates of the Waterworks Nature Reserve were closing for the night. Perhaps it left us a little more to investigate in future. Cutting across the corner of Hackney Marshes, now used as a recreation and sports ground, we proceeded back to the Lee and its boats, and watched a little crowd of Long Tailed Tits fly over the water, and a cormorant drying itself on a pipe which crossed one of the canals. In the overcast the light was beginning to fade, and we made our way back through the local park, past a pair of Egyptian Geese, which were grazing on the short grass, and past the little crowds of young people who had begun to gather with their dogs in the park, back into the concrete jungle.

Tittesworth Reservoir

Tittesworth reservoir lies a few miles from Leek in Staffordshire, a few more miles from Stoke on Trent. It is operated by Severn-Trent water, serving the Midlands, and, as is the case with many reservoirs, they allow part of the surrounding area to be managed for the benefit of wildlife. in the shadow of the Roaches, It became a rather wonderful birding surprise when I visited last week with Natty. 

A breeze and a dark grey sky greeted us in the morning, and the weather dictated there would be few exciting butterfly sightings today.  From the bus stop we made a substantial walk down a fast country road, past the sad remains of a squashed Brown Hare, on which a couple of Carrion Crows were feeding. The first area we reached when we arrived at the site was wooded.  A river, feeding the reservoir, meandered through the trees. The first bird we encountered was a Song Thrush, perched on top of a hawthorn shrub. It was singing, with the characteristic repetition of phrases typical of the species.  The river itself caught my eye, and sure enough a pair of Grey Wagtails were busily feeding and chasing each other over the shallow water.   These charismatic little birds seem to me to turn up wherever there is water, indeed I have seen them in litter filled storm drains in suburban centres, but only a few moments later a more unusual riverside passerine presented itself. A Dipper flew off the bank not far from where we were standing and alighted on a stone a few metres downstream. Dippers are very scarce here in the South East, and all my encounters with them have been in the North West and Midlands. 

The Hawthorn had just begun to flower in Staffordshire, the progression of the seasons perhaps a couple of weeks behind down South, on account of the slight change in latitude and altitude compared with Essex, and we could still see well up into the tree canopy, not yet closed by leaf burst. The ground was a little muddy, and the river flow quite powerful on account of the recent rain. The scratchy calls of whitethroats and repetitious songs of chiffchaffs dominated. A small passerine which alighted in front of me came as something of a surprise. It was black and white, a Pied Flycatcher! They seemed to be surprisingly common around the area! There was a female there too, and she was quite photogenic, hanging around for several seconds. A  couple of swifts hurtled over our heads on their constant pursuit of flying insects. 

Pied Flycatcher.

As we neared the reservoir the river widened and we moved into an area of wet scrubland. A bird with a bright, salmon pink underside and a white rump could only be a Bullfinch, and on closer inspection a pair were fluttering from branch to branch among the alders which grew out of the shallow water. There were Reed Buntings here too, smart marshland birds, apparently at home in the wet woodland. Singing on a branch which hung over the path was a Garden Warbler, a bird with which I am none too familiar. The Garden Warbler is a bird of scrubland like this, and not a common garden visitor in this country, contrary to the name. It is about as plain a bird as one can imagine, grey-brown on its back with a diagnostic grey marking on the side of its neck. I’d met a single passage bird at Chafford Gorges a few weeks back, but here the species seemed to be flourishing, and there were many!  As the wet woodland gave way to open water, we saw some Tufted ducks and Moorhens, nothing but the usual, on the water. We elected to turn round and stop on a conveniently placed picnic bench for lunch. Quite what perched on top of a nearby shrub and looked at us and darted off into the undergrowth remains a mystery, but it was perhaps a little bigger than a robin, had a rich brown back, a pale chest, and few distinctive markings. There appeared to be a slight white ring around its eye. I called it a Nightingale, but when submitting records to the BTO later I was told that the species was a local rarity, and had my ID queried, so now I am no longer so confident. If it had sung, I would have been confident, but it just watched as I nearly dropped my sandwich and fumbled around with the binoculars before vanishing.

A singing Garden Warbler

We wandered back to the council run visitors centre which, to our disappointment, seemed mostly a fund raising exercise, with no relevant information and no sightings board. The volunteer or member of staff on duty could only suggest we found one of the reserve wardens whilst on our walk to tell us about what had recently been seen. Perhaps it is better sometimes to go out onto a reserve with no expectations.

Our first stop involved crossing the country lane, to where a small area of water had been designated a nature reserve by the water company. The Roaches, rocky hills covered in moorland vegetation, relic patches of a once larger network, stood out before us. We found a small hide overlooking the water, which initially looked barren. A moorhen picked about in the shallows and there were a couple of coots on the water. The sky was beginning to look grey and threatening.  A small bird appeared from behind the island, which we decided was a Ringed Plover, on the basis of their posture, they are more rotund and hunched than the very similar Little Ringed Plover. Another small brown wading bird then presented itself, with a distinct flight pattern appeared and also landed on the island. It would flap very rapidly, and then glide, wingtips lowered in an inverted V, a little like a Harrier jump jet and completely unlike a Harrier. This is another migratory species which is often spotted around ponds, throughout Britain, at this time of year, a common sandpiper, and the unique flight pattern is diagnostic.  An Oystercatcher too sat hunched on the island, and before long a handsome lapwing flew in, mewing, to join it.  At one point, three handsome curlews, birds emblematic of the Staffordshire Moorlands landed. These are big birds, easily dwarfing the other waders, and have declined substantially as the moors on which they breed have shrunk. The land about us, aside from the scrappy Heather and Bilberry on the roaches, was farmland, “improved” pasture grazed by cattle, but here were the birds in their ancestral home. Being familiar with Curlews as very much a winter bird of coastal habitats, it was a pleasant change to see them inland, even if the habitat had been ripped from under them.  As we watched them, the rain began to drum on the roof of the hide.

The roaches, and an angry sky.

We walked back, past the visitors centre, past more whitethroats and thrushes and blackbirds, and under swifts and swallows, which had descended to pursue insects over the water as the rainfall purged the clouds of bugs from the air.   Hirundines and swifts characteristically gather over water in wet and windy conditions. Natty and I, however, pressed on. We noticed, as we walked beside the water, that there was a distinct lack of water birds on the reservoir itself, aside from the typical Canada Geese, Tufties and Mallards, many of the latter semi-feral with white blotches and markings betraying a farmyard history. I think such “hybrid” mallards are very pretty, but they are hardly exciting. A couple of Great Crested Grebes were more like it, and these could be seen swimming well out in the water.

The path took us away from the water’s edge, and the rain continued to fall as we made our way down a muddy track, past a field of improved grass and thoroughly miserable looking cows. A glance into the trees we past revealed long tailed  tits, another garden warbler, and a singing Willow Warbler, but nothing new. It was quite a relief when the uninspiring vista of mud and electric fencing gave way to the dam which marked the end of the reservoir, the length of which we had now walked. It was down some steps and through some pines, along the length of the dam, and up again into a pine plantation. Elderly, sweet smelling Scots Pines formed a dense canopy, and among their trunks dead trees rested on their living neighbours. A goldcrest alighted in front of us, looked around startled, and disappeared. There were a couple of Jays in the trees too.  As we walked through the woods, occasionally catching glances of the water beside us, we startled a large raptor, which disappeared over the water and into a cluster of trees opposite. It’s back was a ragged brown, and there seemed to be white markings on the underside but from my angle I couldn’t tell; it was the bird that got away. Buzzards are not uncommon in Staffordshire but Ospreys are also known to visit Tittesworth Water in spring and autumn, and one was recorded just a few days later. Whether we saw it first, it seems, we will never know.    

Another view of Tittesworth Reservoir.

  

The reservoir still had more treats in store for us. After getting overexcited about a Mistle Thrush, possibly mobbing some unseen mammal in the grass, and having almost completed our circumnavigation of the lake, we saw a small flock of finches leaving the grass. Most of them were pretty little goldfinches, flashing bright yellow wing bars as they took off into a tree, but some were plainer, and speckled. Lesser Redpolls are a breeding bird in Britain, but I am used to seeing them in the winter as they, in the company of other finches, nibble at catkins and other fruiting bodies on woodland trees. Here were, presumably, British breeding redpolls amid a flock of Goldfinches in mid May.  Also in the trees beside the lake, as if wires had yet to be invented, were a number of very hunched, damp and moody looking Barn Swallows. There were still many swifts and hirundines, including house and sand martins, wheeling about over the water, but these specimens had obviously thought it better to rest than spend their energy on thin pickings of insects over the water.  Even on such a grey day, the iridescence of their black-blue backs of the birds at rest was more obvious than it would be when they were in flight.

The tree of Swallows

We met a young family of ducks, as we both began looking forward to getting indoors and out of the rain. A sleek, brown-headed, largely grey duck with a fine chestnut crest, which any old school punk would be proud of, led a brood of ten black and white ducklings away from the bank and into open water. At one point some of the little ducklings even hitched a ride on their mothers back, like Grebes.  They were of the fish eating “sawbill” type, and again I had to check the Collins, but the sharp definition between the females’ chestnut head and grey body, and the small, white patch on her chin identified her as a Goosander. These are remarkable, exotic looking ducks with much lighter beaks than those of the dabbling and ducks which are so familiar. This family were shy, the mother clearly anxious to lead the ducklings away from us, and further into open water, so I resisted the temptation to stay and watch them for longer as, with the conditions and the known presence of a large raptor, making them nervous was only putting them at risk.

Viewed through some inconvenient marginal vegetation, the Goosander family.

Although it had been an incredibly good day of rain-soaked birding, we appreciated the warmth and a cup of tea when we got back to Natty’s house and dried off!

Beautiful Staffordshire

I would like to apologise for the delay, I've been a little under the weather these past few days and have been slow to update. But here goes.

Staffordshire is beautiful. I might be biased because a particular lovely young lady lives there, but the woodland wildlife I met there last week was something else. It’s the beginning of summer and as such the migrants are properly starting to arrive and get on with their business. The resident wildlife is on the go too, butterflies are on the wing,  and birds are singing, proclaiming territories and gathering food for nestlings. So it was at Coombes Valley on Wednesday, when I made a return visit.  No sooner had I arrived than I had encountered my first Small Copper butterfly of the year, a very handsome little creature indeed, with deep orange on his forewings, his brown hindwings flushed with an iridescent orange sheen. He sunned himself breifly on the dandelion infested meadow.

Coombes Valley is a woodland nature reserve, a mixture of young and ancient woodland, clinging to the walls of a steep sided valley, with a flood meadow set at the bottom, lying beside a small, fast flowing river. Where the river bends, sits a bench overlooked by a pair of nest boxes, and it was here that we saw our first Pied Flycatchers. We’d been sitting a moment or  two, fretting about our forgotten lunch, when a very smart little bird landed on a twig just a couple of metres away. It was black and white, with a bright white underside. A male Pied Flycatcher! It took off and appeared to perform a little aerial dance in front of us, in pursuit of flies. It was there for a few seconds and then disappeared among the branches of a hawthorn.

We waited a little longer, and saw, to our surprise, peering out of a hole in a tree, an adult Great Spotted woodpecker. He, and he was a male by the red patch on the back of his head, slowly, cautiously left his hole, and clung to the side of the tree which he had made his home. Waiting for a few minutes, he appeared to change his mind and disappeared back into his hole. Perhaps he was incubating a clutch of eggs and waiting for his mate to return from foraging, so it could be his turn. A Grey Wagtail, all flicking tail and smart yellow, darted about over the babbling brook, and a chaffinch sang its brief, repeated song in a tree above us.  A few moments later the Pied Flycatcher returned, with the female, browner but no less smart and charming, following behind. The male let me take a couple of record photos from a distance. It was, as the RSPB is fond of saying, a “moment.”

After we waited a bit longer in the hope of getting a better photo of the pied fly, we decided to head up into the woods. In the canopy birds sang, robins, pied flycatchers, great tits and willow warblers. A bird with a reddish tail, probably a female redstart, shot up into the canopy and out of sight as we rounded a corner on the muddy woodland trail. We stood and waited for it for ages. We only caught brief glimpses of Coombes Valley’s other resident passerine attraction, unfortunately, but we seemed to encounter a pied flycatcher every couple of hundred yards. The second was in a clearing when I seemed to startle a male and saw his striking black and orange underside as he flew away at speed, again into the canopy.

Among the whole host of woodland birds we saw at Coombes Valley were Nuthatch, Blue, Great and Coal tits, and a very obliging treecreeper. A treecreeper is an odd little brown bird, both adorable and reminiscent of an ageing woodland wizard at once. It has a greyish white underside and a dark, streaked back, and clings close to trees, creeping up the bark against which it is remarkably camouflaged.  This one broke all the rules, and almost posed for a photo, his curved beak full of grubs and spiders, clinging to a tree just metres away. We watched him for several minutes, and even as we walked towards him he barely flinched, just moving up the tree and around the trunk out of view.

As we left the woods and joined the flood meadow at the valley bottom, where whitethroats and blackcaps sang, replacing the true woodland species, a dark shape flew over, and it was distinct from all the other crows. It was bigger, and it had a diamond shaped tail. I’ve not seen many of my favourite Corvid and avian Goth in England, having met most of them in Scotland and Greece, but this was a raven, and a beautiful example at that. It crossed the valley and disappeared over the trees, slowly. There is something about the shape of a raven, its long wings, its slightly back facing primary feathers, that big tail, which just places it in a league of beauty above other crows, imposing and splendid.
Natty brought my attention to what appeared to be an owl pellet on the ground, which was attended by at least four beetles. Some of these had a striking pattern of orange markings, around a shape a bit like a cross on their wing cases.  I recalled the Sexton Beetle, which buries dead animals for its larvae to feed on, and wondered if this was it, confused by the animal remains in the owl pellet. Another beetle was round, with a flattened body, matt black wing cases and an orange thorax. I have no idea. If any of my readers can help I would be interested to hear from them.  

To conclude a day of wonderful wildlife encounters, Natty and I walked back to the nearby town of Leek through the grassland and copses, the beautiful rolling Staffordshire countryside, down a barely signposted footpath, taking us through fields of cows, and pigs,over a disused railway line, into the smart pleasant town, just as the night fell, and in time to find the fish and chip shop closed! The following day, we would head out into the Staffordshire Moorlands again, to the amusingly named Tittesworth Reservoir, to meet some more unexpected wildlife.

Migrants and Babies in the first week of May

I’m off to Staffordshire tomorrow, in search of the holy trinity of woodland passerines Pied Flycatcher, Redstart and Wood Warbler. In view of that, and it having been a while since I last posted, I’m going to brave the slow desktop computer, substitute for a laptop which, it turns out, was far to fragile, to share a few highlights, from a week in which the sky remained ashen and the drizzle rarely abated, except to pour.

Saturday 28^th April and the RSPB local group took us up to Paxton Pits in Cambridgeshire, in search of spring passerines, and other wildlife. Paxton is a sort of patchwork of beautiful wetland, scrub and open water, and, on the day of our visit, the wetland got wetter by the minute. Not long arrived from Africa, Swallows hugged the surface of the pits, as they hunted for insects taking their first weak wing beats of their adult lives above water. Swallows depend on flying insects and these tend to be hard come by in such wet conditions. One of the few places they still congregate is over water, and, as such, hirundines tend to gather over water when the weather is wet or turning. A single Swift, something of an early arrival, passed over our heads as we walked, and occasionally the fluid, musical notes of Nightingale, a species for which the reserve is particularly noted, could be heard emanating from the scrub. I must confess I have always found the nightingale somewhat overrated as a vocalist, finding blackbirds just as pretty, but yet having inspired, it seems, a somewhat smaller body of poetry. But there is something different about those notes, something bigger and fuller, a distinct quality of sound which sets the nightingale apart from other birds. Maybe it is something that has to be heard to be understood, and, like many musicians, is definitely best experienced live. Eventually a small, robin sized bird, a robin, it seemed, without a red breast, appeared on the ground behind one of the hides and started hopping around. Its back was chestnut brown and its underside a pale grey. Nightingales are often called drab, but that isn’t a word I’d use. They are impeccably smart, elegant, and very clean looking. They lack the bright colours of some related species of chat, yes, but there is something fine about their appearance as well as their voice.
Nightingales being the main attraction at Paxton Pits, we saw several other passerines, including several pairs of Blackcap, a few Common Whitethroat, lots of singing Robins and Blackbirds, and a very showy Willow Warbler. Resembling a Chiffchaff but with a much more tuneful, varied song, Willow Warblers are thought to be declining in this country, so this handsome individual, sitting on top of a hedge singing his heart out, was a very welcome sight. Walking around we came to the less pretty side of the reserve, where sand and gravel workings continue and signs warn visitors not to attempt to swim in quicksand.
In the afternoon I left the rest of the local group in the visitors’ centre, hiding from the drizzle, and glanced into the small pond outside the visitors’ centre. After a couple of false starts as little Smooth Newts came up for air, I made out the black shape on the stony bottom of the pond I was looking for. It was easily twice as long as the Smooth Newt, many times the volume, and looked jet black through the water. Eventually one came up for air and I saw the huge, deep tail of the Great Crested Newt, as it turned and dived under the water. It’s not a species I’ve really taken the time to see before, and it is quite impressive. There are few places I have come across where they can be observed just by looking, and where they cannot be observed by just looking they cannot be observed, being protected from disturbance by non-licence holders, such being their status under law, a necessary result of their increasing scarcity.
I ended the day at Paxton watching the Common Terns wheeling and diving, and chasing each other’s tails, over one of the pits. Three of these elegant white birds, with their thin wings and long tail streamers, were fishing here. One would dive for a fish, and then the other two would dive in for a tailchase, noisy, and demonstrating the agility of these birds in the air. I’d seen Sandwich terns battling with Arctic Skuas on a windswept Kentish beach before, and this was a similar display of the terns incredible agility, their quick turns, their ability to stop in the air and go into a dive almost instantaneously, over the green water and brown reed beds. If you happen upon some Terns, I would strongly recommend hanging about to have a look, they are well worth watching for a while. Many visitors were disappointed by the rain, which probably did limit the amount we could see, but I for one was satisfied with good views of a Nightingale, a number of passerines and my first encounter with the terns typical of these Atlantic shores since I was attacked by Arctic Terns on the Farne Islands in Northumberland last June.
Tuesday May 1^st

Saturday May 5th and I took a walk around Upminster with a freind, starting in Clockhouse Gardens by Waitrose in St Mary's Lane. Here Feral Ducks mingled with wild coots and moorhens, and a brood of yellow Canada Goose goslings were catching the attention of several people. Clockhouse gardens is a small urban park with a small pond and carefully manicured flowerbeds, no doubt enjoyed by grazing geese and picked over by Moorhens. We continued onto Cranham Marsh where the calls of noisy Parrots mixed with the more melodious songs of Blackcap and Whitethroat, and passed through that lovely reserve to Parklands and Bonnets wood beyond, where Skylark could be heard. A Grey Heron and a kestrel flew over, and Apple Blossom provided a welcome spot of colour against the grey sky and among the mixture of cultivated trees which have been planted there.  

Sunday May 6^th and I went for a walk at Thorndon Country Park near Brentwood with the Matriarch. Mum spotted a pied wagtail as we left the visitors centre, but I missed this, though both of us saw a smart Great Spotted Woodpecker just a few paces later. Chiffchaffs and Great Tits sang in the canopy, but in the rain few birds could be seen as we walked the muddy woodland paths. The woods are truly coming alive now, the canopies closing as the spring leaf burst nears completion, and parts of the park were carpeted with nodding English Bluebells. We made our way to a hide beside a small lake, and a pair of blackcaps could be seen in the understory, disappearing into higher branches as we appeared. When we reached the hide we were entertained by three sweet little Mallard duckings, swimming at speed in all directions as their parents tried to keep up. The male Mallard was, unusually, also in attendance. A couple of Greylag Geese also had a little yellow gosling with them, sticking close. A pair of smart Little Grebes swam across the water in front of us, and there were a couple of pairs of Tufted Duck about. A show of parental defensive behaviour was put on by the Greylags when a Canada Goose came a little too close to the pair. The reaction was instant, both adults lowering their heads and hissing at the intruder. When he didn’t get the message immediately, one of the Greylags ran at him on the water, hissing and flapping, as the confused Canada hissed back, and lowered his neck too, until the Greylag pressed home his attack and he retired a few feet to a safe distance. Such was the speed and violence of the Greylag’s defensive action, I was breifly concerned for the welfare of the youngster, as the water was churned and splashed in all directions as the two Geese clashed. Once the Canada had retired a distance peaceful Greylag family life appeared to resume, and they made their way off, amongst the marginal vegetation.
A pair of grey herons nested among the trees by the water, the male bringing back food to his sitting partner. A few chaffinches fluttered about in the trees, and Jackdaws made entertaining noises with their contact calls in the treetops, as Grey Squirrels, typically, were everywhere. The rain probably kept most of the bird life quiet, but Thorndon's woods are special, and an overlooked habitat in a county probably best noted for its wetlands,  and well worth a couple of hours on a quiet afternoon. saw me heading down to Stone near Bradwell on Sea in north-east Essex, and I took the opportunity to wander down the sea wall, past some beautiful and very friendly pigs in a field, to see what was about. May is an important time for migratory birds, with several species piling into the country for the breeding season, and I wondered if anything interesting might be found in this coastal spot. A line of shelduck flew over, and on the mud of the river Crouch were a few dozen Brent Geese. These birds were presumably stragglers from the huge flocks of geese which winter here on the Essex rivers. A handsome male wheatear, with a slate grey back and black bandit mask, perched on the sea wall, and some waders sat by a reed-lined pool inland of the sea wall. As they took off, most turned out, with the diagnostic white triangle on the trailing edges of their wings, but one, lacking these triangles, but similar in size and shape to its fellows, was probably a migrating Spotted Redshank. It was still, more or less, in its drab winter plumage. Round here, we rarely see their smart, black summer plumage, which they tend not to acquire until they have moved further North. A dunnock and a whitethroat sang in nearby bushes, and my attention was caught by a large, brown bird flying low over the reedbeds. It held its wings in a slight V, and had pale tan markings on its head. An unexpected Marsh Harrier was certainly a pleasant sight, as were two Avocets picking about daintily in the shallows. As I left I was fortunate enough to see a young fledgeling blackbird being fed by its father in one of the garden hedges, further sign that, while many long range migrants, like the Wheatear and the Spotred, were still very much on the move, our resident passerines were already well advanced with their breeding season.

Wednesday May 2^nd was volunteering and Roding Valley again. We contended with the mud to build some steps for access, and were over flown by plenty of Swifts and Swallows, but what amazed me was how the lower fields by the River Roding itself were flooded, and flowing. There were lakes where the meadows should be. Periodic flooding is part of the history and the ecology of the meadows, depositing nutrient rich fluvial soils on the grassland. Often, these low lying meadows are host to abundant wild flowers and butterflies, but on Tuesday, they had mallards floating on them. A kingfisher flew out of an oak tree, hundreds of metres from where it would usually have lived, and over to vegetation emergent from the water, but previously standing on the riverbank. One of the volunteers wandered out a few metres and found the water approaching the tops of his wellies, and said he could feel the water flowing. No doubt, unless there is much more rain, the river will already have begun to return to its channel, but the nutrient levels in the adjoining fields may have been topped up. Walking in the fields after the work party, an adorable, big-eyed Harvest Mouse, the colour of wet straw, scampered out of a tussock and briefly into view, allowing us a glimpse of an infrequently seen small mammal.