(lifer birds in bold)

the new year was seen in at Sidmouth, in Devon. my first messy, amateur, part-time birding year commenced on new years afternoon. with the sun emerging for the first time in days, a walk along the beach turned up Oystercatchers and Turnstones, amongst others. Fortunately, I had seen these the previous day, so was able to drag my hungover-self on autopilot towards the spot, kicking my list off in lazy fashion! I had looked into some good birding spots along the Jurassic coast, but didn't have time (or transport) to get to any.

once back in London, urban birding produced the usual tits, finches etc - the hilight probably being a Kestrel swooping over my head in Hatfield.

the first big London outing was along Walthamstow marshes, which produced some great views of Fieldfare and Redwing, then onto somewhere I stumbled to by accident - the Waterworks Nature Reserve (and golf course) in Hackney:

http://www.greenflagaward.org.uk/winners/GSP001365/

Plenty of ducks etc here, but the hilights for me were a Green Sandpiper, Green Woodpecker, Water Rail, and Kingfisher.

apologies if I sound like a complete layperson, but my first Kingfisher, and what a sight! No book can prepare you for just how much it shimmers, even on a dull freezing day. I'm sure all the descriptions have been used before - 'a tiny blue dart', 'almost like a trick of the light'..but how wonderful..

the Water Rail introduced a major aspect of birding for me, which is the confidence of being able to identify something - having to have that conversation with your own brain:

'ok, something on the edge of the bank, near the reeds'

'it looks like a moorhen. statistically, it's probably a moorhen. we've seen loads of those today'

'could be a Water Rail. the guide here in the hide says that there is a promising population of them here'

'ok, tell me what you can see'

'well it looks thinner than a moorhen. it has a tufty white tail, like a moorhen, but it looks larger in relation to the rest of it's body. I've also seen a lot of moorhens in my time, but it just seems to be behaving differently'

'hmm that could mean anything. maybe its just a juvenille moorhen?'

'ahah..the beak! totally different, completely un-moorhen-like. longer, less colourful. ok brain, I'm calling it'

'well done, sir!'

the Water Rail vanished into the reeds. I went home absolutely chilled to the bone, which is a lesson I really need to learn..


next up, a couple more trips to bring us up to the present. thanks for reading


M