Trip reports

Wednesday Walk to Chertsey Meads - by Peter Hambrook

Wednesday, 10 June 2009

I am still amazed that ten members as well as two leaders turned out in steady rain for the morning walk here. Perhaps it was curiosity to see somewhere local that they may not have visited, or perhaps the thought of watching daytime television was so awful that getting soaked was preferable. Who knows?

Chertsey Meads is accessed from, not surprisingly, Mead Lane, at the junction where Weir Road and Fordwater Road meet. Follow this lane to the end and park in the second car park (you have to make a left turn where the lane turns into a private road). The Meads is an area of grassland, reed bed and scrub on the southern bank of the Thames about a quarter of a mile downstream from Chertsey Bridge. On a fine sunny day in mid-June you would expect this to be heaving with warblers, butterflies, dragonflies, damselflies ..... and dog walkers. However, this was definitely NOT a fine June day.

Firstly we walked to the river where a group of Canada geese took one look at us and headed off in the opposite direction. A juvenile grey wagtail was only slightly more obliging. Having attempted to take shelter under an inadequate tree as the rain turned into a steady downpour we gave up and trudged on around the circular walk, accompanied by a goodly number of low flying swifts which were desperately trying to find insects. After a while the rain eased and whitethroats and blackcaps could be heard but only occasionally glimpsed in the scrub along the path. As we reached the reed bed the rain stopped and the skies brightened. This was better. Reed and sedge warblers and reed buntings could be heard singing lustily and eventually gave reasonable views. Reaching the private road we investigated the scrub on either side without turning up anything more exciting than a whitethroat, wren, song thrush and a brief glimpse of a fallow deer.

The skies were darkening again, but despite this we headed past some useful looking hedges towards a line of trees where birdsong could be heard, disturbing a group of four more fallow deer en route which, unusually, stared at us curiously for a while before eventually deciding that perhaps they ought to run away. As we neared the trees the rain set in again in earnest and we decided to admit defeat and head back for the cars. That was the last shower of the day and it has hardly rained since!

My thanks to those who turned out in the awful weather and hopefully enjoyed at least an hour of reasonable bird watching weather in an otherwise very damp morning.

Peter Hambrook