I have been lucky enough to have spent the last three days in Champagne lakes and forests of France becoming immersed in the sounds of thousands of Cranes and wildfowl and the woodland delights of Black and Middle Spotted Woodpeckers and all the tits!
Anyway, I dropped my friends off in Wanstead at about 1.30pm and start to head for home. Shall I pop into Rainham for a cuppa? Why not? I am about to pull into the gate when Brenda rings to tell me that two Penduline Tits have just been seen but isn't it a shame that I am still in France...
Needless to say, after picking up Brenda and Mark we scuttled round to the Northern Trail in howling wind and spitting rain just in time to catch the two Pendulines disappearing into the reeds! I left them to it and came home with an even bigger smile on my face! Hopefully they came out again after I left!
A fine end to my hols! :o)
sorry could not resist this photo...
Cranes ... definitely not at RSPB Rainham Marshes... yet!
morning all
Basil Thornton got some fab shots last week on the reserve. Definitely worth an airing here!
You can tell that it is a female Green Woodpecker as the moustachial stripes are completely black and do not have the red centre that the males have.
Female Stonechat
male Stonechat
me again. Slaty was seen again on Saturday and Priscille Preston managed some shots of this elusive Japanese gull on the previous Sunday.
You can see how big and heavy this gull is when standing next to this young Herring Gull. The big body, brown head shawl, slate grey back, huge white terial and secondary bar and really pink legs all point to this being the genuine artical...
and in this shot you can see that it is not far of off the size of Great Black Backed Gull which is the biggest in the world.
I wonder how much longer it will stay around for?
and the news just in...
From 28th February (today) to 6th March our troublesome toilets are having a refit and the waterless urinals will be replaced with more environmentally friendly (and less smelly) loos that use harvested rainwater, Needless to say there will be some disruption but we have provided some portaloos so we should be ok!.
Oh and one more thing... please keep your fingers crossed for us but hopefully the wind turbine will be back up by mid March!
A slight north-easterly breeze and an incoming tide has brought a steady stream of Black-headed Gulls up the Thames today with two Kittiwakes and an adult LIttle Gull in tow. The ringtail Hen Harrier is still around and was seen out hunting over the Target Pools and an Egyptian Goose flew down river a little while ago!