Keen (well, we are into the second week of Jan - I'm sure this will fade) to add a few more ticks to this years patch-list, I arrived on the Flats in semi-darkness. First stop was the boggy bit of the SSSI in hope of beating any dog-walkers and flushing last years ever present
Common Snipe, but unfortunately the mild weather has moved this bird on - I'm sure it will be back once Winter returns again.
The first tick of the day was a
Great black-backed Gull flying high over the flats, this was soon followed by a second tick in the shape of a female
Bullfinch with three
Lesser Redpoll feeding in the Birch trees near Motorcycle Wood. After a couple of hours traipsing through the brooms and sifting through the
Gulls on the football pitches, the
GBB Gull and
Bullfinch was as good as it got, so I headed to the Park to check on the celebrity
Grebe - yep still showing extremely well!
.jpg "Slavonian Grebe") |
| Winter plumage Slavonian Grebe, Wanstead Park |
I checked a couple of favoured spots for
Water Rail in the park without any luck and also looked for
Siskin in the Dell but drew another blank, as time ticked on and the park started to fill with the usual weekend ensemble, I headed back to the Flats where I finally found a long overdue tick, a small party of
Skylark were in the short grass on the fairground - so just the three new birds added to this years
2015 Patch List making that a not to shabby 62 species to date.
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