Pete,

Why is it I never see a green sandpiper on the concrete in Pymmes Brook?  Yesterday at about 2 o’clock, Max and I spent whole minutes gazing N and S but no sandpiper of any coloration (a bit of lingo americano always adds to the length of words) piped up or bobbed up or (for Philip’s belief system) materialised. And there was no kestrel on the gasometer being pestered by any of the resident crows. A goldcrest heard calling in the bridge-end shrubbery, in counterpoint to a song thrush and robin singing nearby, was my meagre reward, along with a couple of moorhens and handful of mallards below.

Am I just blind and deaf and unfortunate?  No, I was perambulating at the wrong time of day, Pete, and I know it.  So it was no surprise that I came across no goosanders and no gadwall by the weir or above Sandpiper Bridge. The water level was still too high for most tastes but a hunched heron, looking as miserable and grey as the day, hugged the patch of reeds at the confluence of the channel and Lee Diversion. Like you I had tufted duck and teal, startled into fleeting low-level flight, as we walked beside the river. No egret, no kingfisher, and naturally no water rail…

But upstream of the Green Bridge, in and around the reedbed, two little grebe were popping up and down like tennis balls among skirmishing coots, moorhens, mallard and four discreetly concealed teal – two of those surprised earlier? – quite unconcerned at being  chased or bombarded by bigger birds. Then suddenly, behind us, the bellish ping of a kingfisher turned my attention.  Sadly no sighting but, above, a flock of 12/13 redwings flighted into the copse west of the bridge.  The ones you’d seen earlier, I daresay.

Two more little grebes on the Navigation, a third and fourth song thrush in song, and from Chalk Bridge a count of 43 coots occupying the water between Ikea and the old Leaside bus depot.  A wish fulfilment observation of m and f stonechat on WMW in thin drizzle sent Max and me back apace to the gasometer where the smell of acrid deep-thoat spot welding, courtesy of the Environment Agency, must have been responsible for the absence of kestrels.  Or so I told myself.  A pretty feeble and far-fetched excuse, I grant you, but what can you expect of a septuagenarian late riser?

Oldie (aka Michael R)

 Pete Lambert wrote today:

Nice sunny morning for what may be my only visit to the Marsh this week, but surprisingly quiet.  The highlight of my morning was when I got back home.  Channel east of Marsh very high after all the rain on Monday, so nothing there, although I did see a female goosander fly up from the Lockwood Reservoir and go north over WM East.  Four song thrushes singing at WM East and more later reaching a total of 13 for the morning!  Four teal in the channel north of Green Bridge and a collared dove west overhead.  Two female gadwall on the Navigation just opposite the Green Bridge, but no sign of any little grebe. Eight tufted duck in the channel near the Lock.  More singing song thrushes at Clendish Marsh plus a grey wagtail and a pied wagtail in Pymmes Brook.  Single heron NW overhead near the Lock.  Hadn’t seen any egyptian geese on my walk down the Lee but what looked like “Large” flew back to the Centre as I went by.

A female kestrel flew off the Gasometer at WM West, then walking back down the Lee Navigation with the canada geese there was what looks like a hybrid goose, photo attached.  Neck too pale for canada and some pink on bill plus ‘pale-face’ effect.  Perhaps result of hybrid with grey lag goose and canada goose.

Reached home and sat looking out in my garden while I drank a cup of tea, then 4 siskin flew into the tree in front of me!  Three males and a female – probably from the group that have been feeding on alders at the Playground behind my house from time to time.  Looked really smart in the bright sunlight.  A few minute later a male blackcap appeared in the ivy on the sycamore at the end of my garden.  My first for this year, and this makes five succesive January’s that a wintering blackcap has come to my ivy berries.




DMC

Thought I’d just try posting to the new look blog.

When I sent out the last FoTM Event Reminder email, I asked for any photos taken on the Marshes that anyone wanted to share.

This was sent to me by David Rowley –
thanks for this lovely shot.

Debbie

Droopy (above)
Narcissus

Michael Ruggins wrote today:

Pete,

I suppose one of these days I shall get up of a morning and see half of the stuff you regularly record day in and day out. For instance, at the Gas Bridge I simply don’t get a sandpiper green or common or purple-hazed and, although I always expect to, I rarely see a grey wagtail and not always a pied (one of those based in Tesco’s carpark and only at the overspill gasometer for short-stay purposes, do you reckon?) but I frequently hear one there.

In my defence, as you know, I most often trundle around in the afternoon approaching dusk with Max in tow. I daresay he’ll soon become one of 2011’s grounded barn owl statistics but at least I can see him in the dark. Yesterday we passed Little and Large, like sentries on night duty, standing three metres apart and facing across the Navigation between BW’s stainless steel water filler and Dave’s greasy spoon. l suspect they are imprinted on me and Max as dual white-haired nocturnal zombies they can safely ignore, with little more than a quavery shelgoose mumble in the throat as we pass by in peace.

Are they, however, the genuine Little and Large? And not the Droopies? A passport photo is needed, I feel, to substantiate their respective identities. The real Large, a loner, who spent a great deal of his non-working days in the past couple of years admiring his reflexion in the BW chrome mirror – your anthropomorphic view benevolently tongue-in-cheek – or fiercely attacking a doppelganger rival – the boring bto social-science take on such behaviour – now appears to be fixated on Little much more diligently. His constancy is a revelation.

Will it endure, I ask myself and Max, whose appetite for wildfowl is forever virginal and unsatisfied. Is he (Little) in love, is she female, or are they gay fashionistas? Is he even a male, I wonder. All I know is that his isolationist stance of yesteryear, when he’d tolerate an egyptian buddy or another pair for a matter of days only, has been sacrificed on the altar of blissful togetherness. He no longer hugs and craves the water pump. Hurrah…

Yet we still have to find empirical evidence and proof that L & L and the Droopies are who we think they are. Maybe Big Dave (Cottridge) can set up his 15 grand’s worth of Nikon and give us 150+ digital images that confirm who’s a hero and who a villain. Meanwhile your opinion would be appreciated sometime this week. 8 days, remember, in your fulsome week and not the measly 7 everyone else is restricted to by boring precedence and habit. Why aren’t we all mathematicians like you, Pete? With a degree to testify to it too.

Michael