Bonxie 31/12/09

Third day now for the Skua, will it stay another day? for tomorrow is the start of the Patch listing compition, with a few more doing it this year should be very interesting!! Me and Jono the filthy year lister will start at the crack of dawn at the silts to pick up Barn and short-eared owls as well as the bonus of buzzard and merlin before picking up the serin, marsh harrier and bearded tit and the long staying skua!! Well, we will see.............

yes you will go down!

Lakeside & Skua

No its not a name for a Pub, but a call from H saying he has a Bonxie on the river from the centre brought our family shopping trip to Lakeside to a slight detour to Rainham (not for the first time must i add!) 5 mins later there i was dashing along the seawall where luckily a few off the boys were watching the bird as it loathed around on the ebbing tide, a great site & London tick.

Hopefuly a pic will appear here if the bird stay's.

Fishers Green 27/12/09

An afternoon stroll to walk off all that turkey and brussell sprouts, and to play with the camera (and dads lens which i still haven't gave back ha,ha) brought us to fishers green, along with all the rest of the world!! carpark was choco block full of dudes in there new festive bright clothing which probably gets aired once a year! any way a few pics in shit light, bad weather, dont know what im doing etc,etc.

What a Lovely Pair of Tits

Rainham marshes all to myself this morning, just like the good old day's!! thats the privelage of being a VBR (volunteer bird recorder) . A stunning pair of Bearded Tits showed very well on the southern boardwalk just up from the visitor centre, also male Peregrine hunting the targets and unusual high numbers of Fieldfare on the reserve with over 400 birds counted.

Mayesbrook Massive!!

OMG! 90 Gadwall this morning, a record count and surely a good london record for such an urban site! previous high counts were 69 last week and upto 35 on previous winters, also higher numbers of Shoveler (28) and Teal (6) Pochard (14) Tufted (22) and also 4 Snipe were another suprise, 3 Little Egret and Grey Wagtail were residents.

Gulls,Gulls,Gulls

Lets face it, its a bit like Marmite, you either love it or hate it. I actually dont mind them. Done the walk from the stone barges to cold harbour point onto ferry lane this morning and amongst the usual suspects found 12 adult, 2 2nd-winter Yellow legged gull, 1st winter Caspian gull and 1st winter Med gull.