Trip reports
Mid-week Walk - London Wetland Centre - by Peter Hambrook
Thursday, 19 January 2012
Once again our trip to Barnes was plagued by heavy traffic on the two routes in, the A316 being at a virtual standstill between the end of the M3 and just before Richmond, resulting in a journey time of an hour and twenty minutes for 19.4 miles! The A3 route was little better. The only plus was that by the time we had all arrived the rain had stopped!
Heading towards the hides, we found a small party of siskins feeding on a low alder and giving good views. As usual we started out at the Dulverton hide, where a good selection of wildfowl was to be seen, including a few pintail and a good selection of gulls and Geoff also picked out a grey wagtail.
Moving to the Peacock Tower, we were entertained by two peregrines flying around although, strangely, not putting up many birds apart from the gulls. Have the ducks learned that it is safer to stay put rather than take flight? Also to be seen from this high vantage point were the masses of teal on the flooded marsh, a few snipe and the occasional little and great crested grebes. A stroll back to the centre via the back track only revealed a few long-tailed tits of note.
It was whilst eating our sarnies that we noticed the day's sightings being updated on a white board. Bittern was on there (seen early am) and jack snipe... .! On asking the guy, we were told it had been seen 20 minutes previously from the Dulverton Hide. Sarnies eaten, it was back there post haste! Fortunately a couple of the Barnes regulars were in residence and they let us look through their scopes at the place where it was concealed. Unfortunately, despite straining our eyes, we still couldn't see the little perisher! In fact it was only when it did its Zebedee impression, bouncing up and down, that we finally managed to pick it out. Superb camouflage.
We finished the day over at the Wildside as usual without adding anything except a very distant stonechat out on the grazing marsh.
All in all a pleasant few hours bird-watching - and I got home in well under an hour!
Peter Hambrook