BirdForum

I like beautifully sunny spring days in England! The sun makes you feel chipper, there's a spring in your step (no pun intended!), and the birds are singing their little hearts out: I ask you, what could more lovely than that?

I decided on giving the London Wetland Centre a visit on Saturday. It seems that the various references to the centre on the previous weekend's Boat Race seems to have made many more people than normal turn up, as the place was heaving with young families...

Stoggler

Feeling sluggish after a few post-work drinks the night before, I somehow managed to drag myself out of my warm comfortable bed and out into a grey drizzly Saturday morning; my mood was not at its best, and my stomach was in need of food.

Finding myself in the Big Smoke at the weekend for a change, I thought it was time to give the Wetland Centre at Barnes a visit. After stocking up on breakfast at Clapham Junction I was on my way for what turned out to be a very fruitful day....

Stoggler

February proved to be a month with events conspiring against me to limit the amount of birding hours available to me, with the consequence that I only saw 54 species during the whole month with no new life ticks and only five year ticks in the whole of February (kingfisher, sparrowhawk, stock dove, nutchatch, and ringed plover).

I did manage a couple of hours at the London Wetland Centre for the first time in about two or three months, which was nice. Otherwise, I just managed...

Stoggler

I finally had the opportunity to spend a day birding yesterday, wrapping up warm and going to visit the WWT centre at Barnes for the first time in over a month.

Getting there as the centre opened at 9.30, it was a chilly overcast day with a few showers although the sun did come out about 2.30 onwards which made the end of the day better.

The usual array of resident ducks (mallard, tufties), swans and geese as well as wintering ducks such as teal, shoveler, wigeon. ...

Stoggler

Spotted Crake. That's what I saw on Saturday afternoon at the Wetland Centre in Barnes, along with a number of other birders all eagerly training their bins and scopes on the same spot. I think that was the first time I've been in a hide with a number of birders all hoping to get a view of something rare, and there was something comical about the excitement levels going up exponentially from getting just a fleeting look of a small bird from a long distance away.

I had been at...

Stoggler