Heaton Park, Manchester

I need to conclude the Manchester account before I end up with a massive backlog of trips to write up. I went to Heybridge Basin yesterday and Cranham Marsh today.  I’m going to keep it brief but I felt that Heaton Park, Greater Manchester, which I visited with Tom, is a remarkable enough green space to be worth a write up. It belongs to a generation of grand, landscaped parks, from the 19^th century and calls to mind the Royal Parks of London, which it exceeds in size. It stands Heaton Hall, an old stately home used to accommodate aircrew on flying training during World War II, until recently open to the public, and now, unfortunately, unoccupied and looking worryingly forlorn.

Heaton House.

Reaching the park we decided to head up to something called the “animal zone” or some such, which turned out to be a collection of grubby farm animals in small enclosures. The highlight was watching the swallows flying in and out from under the eaves, busily attending their chicks, before rocketing out and into the sky in search of insects. Outside the run down looking stately home they alighted on the ground in pursuit of something we could not see. There were a couple of pied wagtails running about as well. 

Swallow at Heaton Park.

The park is a patchwork of long, rough grass, manicured lawn and copses. In the copses the green leaves of Himalayan balsam are in evidence, suggesting this invasive has a hold here, beside the stinging nettles and other flora. Whitethroats could be heard singing but few birds presented themselves among the leaves, those that did turned out to be blue tits. There were plenty of Rhododendrons, presumably planted there for their dramatic flowers, and they indeed looked spectacular. There were dog roses around as well. The woodland, clearly planted, had obviously matured, and spots around the sites main lake, where the Rhododendron lined gaps in the tree cover from which the pavilion could be seen across the water, was testimony to the skill and foresight of the landscapers.

View from the "Temple."

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On the lake we saw a crèche of Canada geese and goslings, and the waterfowl were dominated by Canadas and a number of feral, farmyard type Geese.  Feral Ducks mingled with wild Mallards and tufties. Some of the male mallards appeared to be losing their bright, breeding plumage, and their brown eclipse plumage, providing vital camouflage during the late summer/early autumn moult, was beginning to show through, as brown patches against the smart iridescent green of their heads and the grey of their flanks. A moorhen was feeding a fluffy chuck, and then, somewhat inexplicably, decided to chase it off. There were a few coots on the water, as well as a distant little grebe.

Moorhen and juvenile

Juvenile Coots.

We walked back up to the stately home and to the “temple” an observatory-like structure which may well have been used as such. From this, the highest point, according to interpretive signage, in Greater Manchester, much of the city was screened by woodland, but in front of us the Beetham Tower still loomed, an ever present sense of place.  We elected to try to and have a look at Heaton Reservoir, which appeared on our maps of the park, but we could not get there. Skirting round a barbed wire compound with communication aerials inside, we found ourselves in a patch of meadow which again hosted common spotted orchids.  Mistle Thrushes hopped about among the grass.  We wandered off through the woods until we came to the margins of a rough grassy area, grazed by a number of horses of various sizes and shades. A very handsome Sparrowhawk over our heads was a welcome addition to the Manchester bird list. 

Mallard moulting into Eclipse plumage.

At the tram station on the way home a juvenile blackbird posed for photos, before the tram made its way back among the red brick and new builds of Manchester. The city had offered an unexpected number of birding opportunities, we saw four species of Raptor including the Sparrowhawk here at Heaton Park, and the Peregrines blew us away. So keep your eyes out, if you find yourself up North, wildlife experiences can turn up quite unexpectedly!

Juvenile Blackbird at Heaton Park Station.

More Mancunian Birding Adventures

The day after the day spent with Peregrines I took the opportunity to catch up with an old friend. Cheryl and I met in Greece working for the HOS and she had recently returned to town after some time away. We decided, in lieu of a proper plan for the day, to head down initially to the Irwell to have a look at the Peregrines. As we wandered down toward the river a couple of tweeting passerines flew over us, which transpired to be Goldfinches.  Reaching the river, we could, with bins, still see a couple of the slate grey juveniles up on their ledge. Here at ground level the feral pigeons still went about their business, oblivious to the predators perched high above them. Still fed by their parents, the juveniles seemed to be having it fairly easy, and did not seem bothered by the meals-on-wings service beneath. A couple of Black headed gulls hawked about above the water, and some Canada Geese and their Goslings sat contentedly on the bank.  We stood, and did a bit of urban birding.

A Mancunian Feral Pigeon

As we stood watching the raptors, a blue shape flew low across the water like a shot. A kingfisher? I thought so, although I couldn’t find it again. An orange shape in the bushes could have been the front of a kingfisher, but turned out to be that of a robin. Where we stood, literally, was in the centre of a city, one of England’s biggest, in the shadow of tower blocks and shopping centres. The water must’ve absorbed several shopping trolleys, and only one bank was vegetated, with Elder, Willowherbs and Buddleia, and this trampled to mud in places by the Geese who roost there. The other bank, made of concrete, plunges directly into the water. There was nothing about this place to make it a wildlife site, nothing tangible, it was just another grotty urban water course, brown and polluted.

A grey wagtail rose out from under the bridge and fluttered off across a hotel car park, flashing its yellow belly and the white edges on its tail to us as it climbed away. Perhaps it was nesting down there. The real star birds, however, were on the water. With dark brown heads, and substantial punky crests, a two Goosander, possibly two females or juvenile birds, swam out from beneath us and hauled themselves out alongside the Canada Geese.  The Goosander is a species of duck, a merganser, with a shape which calls to mind that of a cormorant. Its beak had tooth-like structures which grasp the fish on which it feeds, and is a lot thinner and narrower than the beak of a mallard or similar dabbling duck.  These two were lazy, and just hauled up next to the Canada geese. The Goosander is a bird I associate with wide bodies of water in winter. It occurred to us they might have escaped from some private collection, but according to the RSPB Goosander breed on the Irwell and at other places in the area.  Yet here they are, hanging out near a Peregrine nest in the middle of a city.

Goosanders and Canada Geese in Urban Manchester

It was heartening to see these birds thriving here in the city. It is a city somewhat impoverished with green spaces, although not around the outskirts as the rest of my visit would prove. Urban birding, David Lindo style, can reveal some interesting species. Positive management for wildlife in Manchester and other cities undoubtedly makes a contribution, as does the unlikely ability of some species to adapt to urban conditions.  It is worth noting that the Peregrines are here in part as a result of great efforts by the RSPB and other institutions.

After our urban experience Cheryl and I met up with my good friend Tom and headed off to the Chorlton Water Park on the bus. Despite the wonderful wildlife I was starting to get the mild crazies I do from being in a built up area for so long. The bus to Chorlton took about twenty minutes and we walked through the leafy residential streets to the River Mersey. Crows and anglers hung out on its banks and the ubiquitous Canada Goose was about but this river, despite its green banks, is somewhat less well managed than the Irwell on the edge of Salford. The emergent and marginal vegetation looked to have been cleared with a mower, leaving only stark, ugly sloping banks. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to this nonsensical management.  Marginal vegetation is vital to most of the characteristic riverside wildlife, such as dragonflies which need the stems to haul themselves from the water, and water voles who use it as both food and shelter. It also helps to reduce the power of flowing water and minimise the risk of flooding. Mindless vandalism would be a good word to describe the management of this stretch of the Mersey, or perhaps it is part of a plot with the Manchester rain to cause heavy flooding in Liverpool.

For the sake of completeness, dire management on the River Mersey.

And Better. Chorlton Water Park LNR.

An exit to the right took us into Chorlton Water Park, where woodland fringed a pleasant, clear park lake. A flotilla of Canada geese occupied the open water. There were a couple of Great Crested Grebes about, a few coots, moorhens, mallards.  The water was quiet as would be expected at this time of year. The male mallards which were present had begun their transformation into camouflaged “eclipse” plumage, to hide them during their moult. The margins of the lake were intact, and, despite the obligatory passing idiots allowing their dogs into the water, management here was good. A walk round the lake, beer in hand, enjoying the rare burst of sunshine that afternoon, was lovely. Tadpoles, some almost developed into froglets swum, or clung to vegetation and stones, in the clear water. The margins at one corner of the lake were fringed with reeds, in which a Sedge Warbler sang frantically.   From the bushes whitethroats, too, could be heard. The banks were covered in wild flowers here, and Common Spotted Orchids grew among the usual clover and Ox Eye Daisies, attended by Silver Y Moths, and a couple of unidentified blue butterflies. They made a floral feast for the eyes. Common Spotted Orchids have spotted leaves and stunning purple inflorescences. 

Common Spotted Orchid

A few Swifts and Sand Martins whistled about in front of us over the water.  A kestrel hovered somewhere and a grey heron flew past on broad, slow wingbeats. On the water we could see a large, white looking duck. On closer inspection it proved to have a Green head and a narrow red beak. A male Goosander! Unfortunately he was too distant to give us a decent picture, but remarkable to encounter this species twice in  one day.

As we walked down to the river, in the fading light and heading towards the pub,  a large bird of prey rose up from in the nature reserve, pursued by a mobbing Carrion Crow. It was a Buzzard. Another bird of prey which was until so recently so scarce, is now thriving on the urban fringe. It felt like countryside here, so the bird did not look out of place, but at the water park nature reserve it was easy to forget how close we were to the city still.

Yeah, there’s a fair bit to see up in Manchester. An unlikely birding destination. We walked back to Chorlton and the bus stop through the woods, where well managed rides lined with silver birch took us to an old track which led back into town.

The Falcons of Manchester

Whilst my rant about the perilous situation facing many raptors in the UK at this stage, I have to write about my recent visit to Manchester where, in the heart of the city, I got some wonderful views of some wonderful birds of prey, and was a witness to their family life, on a ledge overhanging the river Irwell as it creeps sluggishly between the boroughs of Manchester and Salford.

On the day after my mate Tom’s birthday, we went over to the house of a pair of good friends of ours, a couple who live in one of the impressive, rather new “dual use” tower blocks in the city centre, overlooking the Irwell and the Arndale centre, as soulless a shopping centre as one could hope to find, and the wider city. From the 23^rd floor the city spreads out before you, its smart, red brick buildings dating back to Industrial Revolution expansion sitting side by side with glass office blocks, the 47 story Beetham Tower and, in the distance, older tower blocks sitting on the outskirts of the city, with rolling hills to the horizon. From here, on a clear day, one can see the Jodrell Bank observatory, and a bridge in Runcorn, Liverpool.  As we disembarked from the lift, the window which faced us briefly framed the shape of a Peregrine, its buff coloured underside indicating it was a juvenile.  A couple of pigeons rocketed through our view, obviously recognising the threatening shape above them, changing direction and disappearing from sight. The Peregrine did not stoop after them.

We made our way in to our friends’ flat where we were made welcome, and we sat by the window. We were pointed to a mossy, dark patch, on a ledge beneath the roof of the smart, red brick building opposite. The ledge, on inspection with the binoculars, turned out to be covered in feathers. Many of these were white and our friend reported having seen the Peregrines taking Black-Headed Gulls back to the ledge.  We did not have to wait long for the birds to return. Reports from the RSPB online suggested four chicks had fledged and were being fed by two adults. An adult Peregrine, we assumed it must be the female, the larger of the sexes in this and most raptor species, landed on the ledge, holding in its talons the grey body of a feral pigeon.  The adult was a smart bird indeed, with a slate-black back, jet black crown and facial markings, and a yellow cere and eye ring giving a fierce expression. For a falcon it is broad bodied, chunky even, but lacks none of the grace of its smaller and slighter relatives. Two juveniles, one distinctly smaller than the other, follow their mother onto the ledge. The juveniles are greyer than their parents, with a hint of russet brown in the crown, and very much beige, rather than white undersides. In flight they already look like falcons, but when perching their youth is plain to see. The feathers on their undersides still look fluffy, and they lack the striking yellow facial features of the adults. For now she just stands over the pigeon, which appeared initially to be struggling, but quickly becomes still as she begins to pluck it. The youngsters look intrigued but wait patiently, occasionally reaching towards the female. Within a few minutes, she has cleared sufficient of the late pigeon’s feathers and begins to offer it, in small pieces as if to a nestling, to her offspring, amid a loud chorus of shrill begging calls from the youngsters. A male and female juvenile sit in front of her, and a few seconds later, another smaller juvenile arrives. The largest juvenile appeared to be receiving most of the food, but the others are fed too. The process of delicately removing small fragments of meat and passing them to members of her brood continues for several minutes, before she is off again, leaving the young to share the meat among themselves. The two larger siblings go in for the largest piece of meat, but a wing or some other substantial section of pigeon remains and, furtively, the smallest juvenile approached and dragged it away, feeding in peace a few metres from his siblings.  The process of breaking down and eating the pigeon has, rather to my surprise, taken the birds about an hour, an hour of squawking begging noises. Feathers from the pigeon are carried away on the breeze.

Another hour passes, and two of the youngsters remain on the ledge for some time, one of them, the smallest, laying down on it as if still in the nest. Raptors incubate their eggs as soon as they are laid, so the oldest chick gets a few days development in before the last youngster has hatched. The older chicks tend to dominate the younger ones, and in poor years, it is often just the oldest, or two oldest, chicks which survive. This juvenile though seemed strong enough, we’d seen him eating and holding his own, so, although some of us were concerned by his odd behaviour in lying around on his belly, wings hanging by his sides, I have no reason to believe his chances now are much slimmer than those of his siblings. Part of the difference in size at this stage could well be due to sexual dimorphism as much as age nutrition, and I do tend to think of what we saw as one female and two male youngsters.

An hour later the adult female returned with another pigeon for her hungry brood, two of which, the smaller youngsters, have waited patiently on the ledge for her. From somewhere, the large, and somewhat ungainly, female youngster appears as well.  Puffed up against the cold, she looks awkward, somewhere between being an adorable, fluffy chick and a streamlined, elegant, and deadly adult peregrine.  Her brothers, squawking, have no such pretences of adulthood about them. One could almost be forgiven for making “squee” noises in their presence. Almost.  The adult begins delicately feeding one of the young males, but their big sister barges them out of the way. At one point the cheeky youngster is engaged in a tug of war with her mother, apparently trying to wrestle the pigeon from her, or at least help to break it into more manageable chunks.   The adult female eventually turns her back on the youngster and covers the kill with her wings, offering a little to the smallest male who seems constantly to be standing behind her, keeping his distance from his siblings. Eventually the big juvenile works out what is going on and moves around to compete with her brother. The tug of war is briefly resumed, after which the female flies off, not to return that evening, leaving the youngsters to sort out the food between them. There is plenty left for the smaller juveniles once the young female is satisfied. Again, they make the meal last well over an hour, and they are still feeding after we’d had our dinner and Birthday Cake. When we look back the two little males are still there, but the young female has obviously left, perhaps to join her parents at a roosting site somewhere. We didn’t see the juveniles leave, but as the light faded, and the sunset shone off the glass Beetham Tower, they did leave the ledge, presumably to somewhere to roost and spend the night.  We took a taxi back to Tom’s flat in Hulme not long after.

The Peregrines in Manchester are not unique, a pair roost sometimes on the Tate Modern here in London, and Bath, Lincoln and several other cities also host breeding pairs. They are not harassed, the street pigeons are nobodies sport, and many welcome a bird which can, perhaps, manage their numbers, and volunteers are often forthcoming to watch the nests and guard against would-be egg collectors, or rescue the juveniles when they fall out. Their success is part of the partial recovery witnessed since the banning of DDT and protection from persecution, and Peregrines, which are cliff nesters, are well suited by towns which offer concrete substitutes for their natural nesting sites. Feral Pigeons, too, are descended from wild ancestors which bred on sea cliffs. Their iconic beauty makes them treasured, both by local experts and by nature-deprived urbanites, and cities offer something of a refuge from the human threats presented by the countryside.

A Tale of Two Owls

Gialova, Greece, Sometime in Early August 2011

I’m casting my mind back now to my first encounter with a wild Barn Owl. It was last year, and I was volunteering in Greece, enjoying the summer of my life.  It was July, or early August, and I was with three or four people, young volunteers like me, and we’d been cycling between point counts on our circuit of the Gialova Lagoon.  I’d met and photographed my first Kentish Plover, or “Alexandrinus,” pronounced with a Spanish accent,  as it was known among ourselves, and seen the little fluffy chicks wandering about on the cracked mud on their oversized feet. I remember Cleopatra’s Brimstone butterflies, and Scarce Swallowtails being almost everywhere, and the wide muddy lagoon, never blue like in the postcards, always with the sound of the ripples lapping on the shore. We made our way to a disused fish farm which stood beside the beach, and represented our last point count of the day. I’d already been informed that “Tyto,” as he was known in our quasi-scientific idiom, lived here, and Estela, the HOS Ornithologist, had shown me their wonderfully messy former nest site, in an apparently filthy room upstairs in the old fish farm, with owl pellets and droppings over the wall, and a filthy space in which the owls had raised their chicks a year or two before. But it had been a while since the owls had been seen, apparently, having been familiar to Estela in the months and years previously.  I was at the back of the crowd, scanning the rafters of the old fish farm, happy to have seen a little Athene noctua, which we all enjoyed, when a white shape appeared to drop from the rafters and fly across the hugely spacious room that would have been the main floor of the factory.  It paused on one of the crossbars which held up the roof and, in what was intended as a combination of a whisper and a shout, and futilely, I tried to call back my colleagues to see the owl. White, a little ghostly, utterly silent, and incredibly beautiful, the owl appeared to hear me and was off through a space in the wall.

A couple of days later, on a cool morning before the Mediterranean heat began to beat down, I returned to the old fish farm, a little against the advice of others who warned it could be dangerous. I should stress looking for owls in abandoned buildings in the small hours of the morning, and alone, is not something this blogger recommends. I sat down on a pile of rubble in the main body of the building and waited for “Tyto.” It was about six in the morning, the same time we carried out our bird monitoring at the lagoon. It will come as no surprise, that, any paranoia about homeless drug dealers chasing conservation volunteers out of the fish farm in the morning quickly abated, and I fell asleep.
I woke up what must have been about an hour later and already the sun was high and the air was beginning to get quite warm. I rose to my feet and looked about. “Tyto” was only a few metres away, and when he saw me move, he took to the wing in a second, but, perhaps curious about me, he alighted in the far corner of the room. I approached him a little, inching forward, and I raised my camera and extended my lens. In the dim light of the fish factory, I needed a steady hand, but I managed to take a single record shot before he moved off, his broad, white wings carrying him silently through his gap between wall and ceiling, and away out of sight.

Tyto alba, Gialova Lagoon, August 2011

4^th June 2012

I’d been trying to shake an inexplicable feeling of immense mild awkwardness and irritation all day. It was the evening, and I decided to throw my bike around Pages Wood, part of the Millennium Community woodlands project, operated by the Forestry Commission, and set between Upminster and Harold Wood, beside the busy Southend Arterial Road.  Young trees have been planted on former farmland, with a few old trees dominating as standards. The river Ingrebourne flows through it, lined with just such oak standards. As it reaches the side of the dual carriageway, a small network of hedges with a few standards spreads out, a bridge crosses the Ingrebourne and the path continues across meadows in which Horses are periodically grazed.  I rode laps of the track, I wasn’t birding, merely having a bit of a ride to blow out the cobwebs on a pleasant, sunny evening. I paused beside the river to watch the swallows picking off insects from the little living clouds which danced above it. I saw a couple of green woodpeckers, pecking about in the grass, the flowery meadows which line what will one day become, when the trees are more mature, the woodland rides, and I heard the Jackdaws alarm calling each time a dog passed them.

The light had begun to fade and I decided to cross the Ingrebourne and head back up the A127 to get home. As I did so, between the mature oak trees, I saw a white bird, very briefly, and I wondered what it was. The view was brief, it could even have been a white pigeon, but I moved forward a little to get a closer look. As the bird reappeared, its identity became clear. It had long, broad wings, was bigger than a pigeon, and its shape was unmistakeable. The flat faces of owls, honed by evolution to channel sound to their remarkable ears, give them a unique appearance in profile. It was a white lady, of medieval superstition, a barn owl, white and angelic against the fading light! I moved on a little, as the owl flew out of sight. I positioned myself on the path with a good vista of the dark green oaks and the buttercup infested meadow, and waited. I didn’t have to wait long. The owl reappeared, making another hunting pass low in front of the trees, eyes fixed on the ground, in search of the mice and voles on which they feed. She rounded a small Hawthorn on the meadow and, for a moment, was flying straight at me. She turned and I attempted to reel off a couple of shots with the DSLR, but as I raised it she saw me and turned tail, drifting silently over the trees and away to the East, where more woodland stood, before the trees gave way to urban parkland and sprawl. She was gone, and I had only blurry long shots on the camera, but she was beautiful, and my first British barn owl.  The experience was almost spiritual, the barn owl, a childhood favourite and ghostly beauty, floating over these woods and meadows on the cusp of London’s metropolis, something so wild, so beautiful, so revered and feared over the years for her unique colour and crepuscular habits. It was with a much less heavy heart that I made my way home in the fading light of a beautiful June evening, across the community woodland past the dog walkers, and the rubbish strewn bridge over the Arterial Road.

Barn Owl, Pages Wood, near Upminster, Essex, England, June 4th 2012

Wild flower Meadows at Pages Wood.

The Mature Trees into which she disappeared, Pages Wood.

The Orchids of Grays

Crab Spider on Common Spotted Orchid Inflorescence.

Just a brief blog post today and an opportunity to share a couple of photos which came at the cost of trudging through some very wet grass on an Orchid Survey at Chafford Gorges today. I dragged my hangover and sleepiness out of bed this morning and grabbed a flask of coffee, and managed to get myself to Chafford to join some of the volunteers there to count some interesting flowers.  An interesting aside, on the way to picking up my hangover at the Huntsman and Hounds, I was lucky enough to watch a hunting Tawny Owl for several minutes, flying up and down over one of the meadows at Cranham Marsh.

Abundant Man Orchids at Grays Gorge.

But this morning, Orchids, back to the subject in hand. Grays Gorge, one of the less visited parts of the small network of sites collectively known as Chafford Gorges Nature Park, hosts some of the sites most exciting vegetation. The floor of the gorge holds woodland, and early succession habitats, but today work was focussed on the habitats around the tops of the chalk escarpments. Here, careful management to prevent the succession to scrub, ensures the survival of chalk grassland with characteristic  plant species. Grays Gorge has orchids, in short, and today I spent my morning counting the tall flowering spikes of Man Orchid, a plant with small, green flowers, with a distinct, closed “head” with a vaguely person-shaped appendage hanging from it, assembled on a tall inflorescence. There were hundreds of these. As I counted Man Orchids, the people next to me were counting Man Orchids, and the beautiful purple inflorescences of Common Spotted Orchids, and discovering the curious green flowers of Twayblades, so called because they always have two broad green leaves lying close to the ground, in the woods. 

Man Orchid Inflorescence

In one of the meadows we did not find a single Orchid at all, but other flowering plants were well represented, and we had to marvel a little at the variety of wildflowers peering through the long grass, even as we got soaked to the skin.

The Meadow.

Grays Gorge is well worth a visit for Orchid fans.  The spectacular purple flowers of the Common Spotted are something of a highlight at this time of year, and later in the season the Pyramidal Orchid, a relatively common but no less beautiful species, will begin to come into its own. 

Common Spotted Orchid inflorescence at Grays Gorge.

Hornchurch Country Park and the Ingrebourne Valley

On Tuesday afternoon, my good friend Tom and I made a trip down to the green part of the Ingrebourne Valley, stretching from Upminster Bridge, and accessed by the Hornchurch AFC football stadium, down almost as far as Rainham, where our local river flows into the Thames estuary. We had chosen a bright sunny day and there were plenty of smart Banded Demoiselles about. These stunning insects, which have a bright, metallic lustre about their bodies, and, in the male, deep blue bands on their clear wings, are specialists in these fast flowing streams.   Swifts and house martins were overhead, circling in the clear blue sky. House Martins, it is now understood, spend a lot of their time feeding at such altitudes to be outside of our visual range, and these were climbing higher, ascending to height and disappearing from view.

We heard the first cuckoo of the day not long after joining the Ingrebourne valley, and outside of Hornchurch Country park “proper.” Cuckoos populations are, like those of many long range migrant birds and farmland specialists, are declining, and are something of a conservation priority. That was far from apparent in the Ingrebourne Valley. A short while later one of these elusive birds flew overhead.  The presence of relatively scarce and declining farmland birds was remarkable that day, but more of those to come.

Banded Demoiselle at the Ingrebourne Valley

Passing the inevitable flocks of Carrion Crow, Woodpigeon and Feral Pigeon, we wandered along the river, glancing down into it in the hope of catching sight of one of the fabled Barbel, large fish which spend their lives fighting against the strong current, but these, unfortunately, proved elusive.  Orange tip and Small White butterflies were on the wing, and there were chaffinches and robins singing. Arriving at the lookout point over the Ingrebourne valley,  a little charm of goldfinches flew over us. A few benches here provide excellent views over an area where the Ingrebourne has been allowed to widen and form reed beds, with green phragmites spikes rising out of the brown remnants of last year’s growth, and spread over flat areas of mud and shallow water.  To our surprise a migratory wader, somewhat scarce in the South East, was feeding in the shallows. It was a small plover, and the bright yellow eye ring which gave it away as a little ringed plover was clearly apparent. It was happy to pose for a couple of ID able photos. We sat for a while and admired the view, a juvenile Grey Heron, a typical denizen of wetlands all over Europe, lazily flew past, and a few moments later, a Little Egret flew off in the same direction.  There was a mute swan further upriver, and a small flock of mallards also contained a pair of Gadwall.  A couple of Lapwing, another bird not so common in the summer months around here arrived and began their display of aerial agility, whistling and rocking from side to side in flight flashing their bright white undersides and metallic green topsides. We watched the display with interest, what purpose it served was not clear, the affirmation of a pair bond, or perhaps to distract some unseen predator. It distracted us, and we watched the birds for a while until they moved on to another part of the river.

View from the viewpoint over the marshes.

Little Ringed Plover

We continued our walk to where second world war pill boxes, heavily armed positions built for a frantic, last ditch defence of Hornchurch Airfield in the event of a Nazi invasion, stood looking over the marsh.  Here RAF personnel would have maintained a vigil, even as the bombs fell on the airfield they were charged with protecting.      We went inside one of the concrete structures, and despite litter and graffiti it retained an eerie sense of history. In front of the pill box lay extensive marshes, beds of phragmites, but the view of these was now obscured by growing brambles.  Behind it, beside the asphalt path, stood a few Hawthorns, and a whitethroat sang from the upper branches of one of these.  The May Blossom has now begun to fade, but summer wildflowers were abundant and a Small Heath butterfly fluttered between them. This little brown Satyrid butterfly is often a species of very old stretches of grassland and I believe this was my first one at Hornchurch Country Park. 

One of the wartime pill boxes at Hornchurch Country Park. Everything looks a bit more evocative in black and white.

As the path snaked around towards Albyn’s Farm Lake, we heard another cuckoo singing in the trees. Chiffchaffs and great tits also sang, and we caught site of a bird which might have been a blackcap. The lake itself revealed little of interest so we proceeded towards Ingrebourne hill, a huge, grassed over pile of rubbish now designated as a nature reserve. We passed a field which was alive with wildflowers, and saw a Kestrel mobbed and harassed by a whole flock of starlings, behaviour which, of course, they abandoned as soon as I got my camera out. The starlings assembled on gates and fences, clearing the path as we passed, returning to it once it was behind us. 

Meadow Habitat at Ingrebourne Hill

It was here we got another pleasant surprise. There are Skylarks here, we must have seen ten or so individuals. One sang from a fence upright and allowed us close enough to take photos. It was a handsome, streaky brown bird, about the size of a starling, with a small but obvious crest on its head. Another two hung in the sky, hovering, on their song flights. Loud, trilling and whistling skylark techno filled the air. Birds appeared out of the grass as we approached and we stuck to the path for fear of disturbing, or stepping on, any of the nests on the ground.    Skylarks, and their song once almost ubiquitous in the English countryside are another of these species whose populations are now in virtual freefall. Changing, more intensified farming practices, and earlier harvests are destroying their nests, although they show signs of benefiting from Agricultural Stewardship Schemes.  Joe Public and his dogs are also something of a menace, as the animals, left off leads to run in the grass, will often sniff out and devour the eggs and chicks of skylarks, while their owners are all too often oblivious. Plenty of dogs and their humans use Ingrebourne hill, although some of the neighbouring fields flourish with wild vegetation and have access restricted by wire fences.   Public access has its drawbacks from a conservation point of view.

Very vocal, and confiding, Skylark at Ingrebourne Hill.

We walked back the way we came, and saw a Red Fox at the bottom of ingrebourne hill, disappearing into the scrub. Making our way back we paused at Albyns Farm Lake to watch several flotillas of Canada Geese and their Goslings, each family with chicks of a slightly different size.  Their parents lowered their heads and hissed each time one of the solitary, non-breeding adults came close.  A great crested grebe hung about close to the island in the middle, and there were a few coots, moorhens and Tufted Ducks about. Wildfowl scattered as a couple of idiots encouraged their hounds to take a swim in the water, but thankfully the dogs seemed uninterested in any of the young birds. They do stir up the water and disturb the wildlife, why one would allow a predator like that to swim in a lake full of young birds is beyond me, but mercifully no harm seemed to be done, this time.

Canada Geese and Goslings on Albyn's Farm Lake.

As we passed the viewpoint again there was one more treat in store for us, as the hawk like shape of a cuckoo flew past us, giving us both good views. It is a sleek, slender grey bird, reminiscent of a Sparrowhawk with a long tail. The head is held slightly raised in flight, giving the body a curious shape, somewhat reminiscent of a banana.  They must be breeding here, parasitizing the nests perhaps of Dunnocks or Reed Warblers, both of which are found here, I assume, as they would be unlikely to be here in such numbers on passage.  I tend to think of the Cuckoo as a relatively scarce bird, worthy of a summer visit to Heybridge Basin or Lakenheath Fen to see, but here they were, at least three separate birds, in a strip of country bordered by suburban metropolitan Essex in all directions.  This unique strip of land deserves its SSSI and local nature reserve designation, and seems, almost every time, to host unexpected wildlife. Below is a rather gorgeous hairy caterpillar we found on the grass near Albyn's farm, any ideas?

Beautiful, but as yet unidentified caterpillar.