With a spare hour this morning between family commitments I chose to spend it walking around the roped off Skylark area of Wanstead Flats and my reward was two cracking Whinchat, a Little Owl, lots of Common Whitethroat, Two Lesser Whitethroat, a Willow Warbler and a Green Woodpecker along with the obvious Skyarks of and a little chat with Marco which happens annually on my spring and autumn visit to the flats in search of migrants. I also spotted a couple of Green Hairstreak butterflies which I don't see very often but I failed to find the reported Redstart despite directions from Marco. ye ..read more

With another unexpected free day I arranged to take Dad and Jim to Minsmere today. We arrived at 7am and walked down towards the sea hearing a couple of Nightingale on the way. Bearded Tits flew across the reeds but dropped in quick on the back of a cold wind. At the Boardwalk we heard a Grasshopper Warbler reeling and Jim got us focused on a distant Cuckoo too for our first year tick. At East hide we picked out our first Sandwich Terns of the year along with a drake Garganey, 2 Greenshank, 3 Ringed Plover and a couple of Turnstone. Med Gulls were present along with Blackwits, Dunlin, Knot and ..read more

With a rare whole day to myself I arranged to meet the Jims and head up to Frampton this morning. We arrived at 8am to find the car park half full but nobody in the actual car park scoping the floods so we set about scanning and quickly found the resident Lesser Yellowlegs to give Dad his first year tick of the day. The Black-winged Stilt dropped in at the far end of the flood and a Short-eared Owl flew over chased by angry Avocets and Blackwits. We also had three Yellow Wagtails, a White Wagtail, Great Egret, Greenshank, Spotted Redshank to name a few of the many birds present. We moved on a ..read more

Popped over the reservoir with Jim this morning with Dad opting out due to a bit of man flu. As we got up the slope at 7.30am Ian L tells us we've just missed a Common Tern which would have been a year tick. A Cormorant posed for a picture on the jetty and a pair of Osyercatchers were our own prizes on south basin. At the causeway we picked out a couple of White Wagtails and then Jim found a Curlew on the causeway which I think is a first for me at the KGV and a first in the patch I call Lee Valley (the reservoir to Holyfield lake) I certainly can't remember seeing one before and my lists back ..read more

I planned to walk the reservoir this morning but other commitments took over so I didn't make it until about 3.30pm. The Jims came with me and we scanned the causeway to find our first Wheatears of the year followed later by our first Sand Martins too. Jim picked out the wintering Slav Grebe and we met Simon W and John on the causeway too. As we scanned the reservoir Simon gave a loud shout to let us know he'd found a female Ring Ouzel and we walked down to the sailing club to enjoy nice views before leaving having bagged three nice early year ticks. Year list now 174 ..read more

We were due to visit Walthamstow reservoir to sort out new permits for KGV but the guy their was having printer issues so asked us to delay the visit for a week or so and with that in mind we decided to use the short window we had to visit Amwell where Jim eventually located the Jack Snipe feeding with a Common Snipe in a puddle along the cut reed from James hide. Lot's of Chiffchaff gave the Jims a second year tick but we found little else of note in the limited time we had today. Jack Snipe (left) Common Snipe (right) Jack Snipe (centre) showing how well the camo works ..read more

Time has really been at a premium of late but I managed a brief walk along the sea wall at Rainham this week where I saw Spoonbill, Sparrowhawk and Marsh Harriers of note and then Thursday I had a quick walk over Sewardstone marsh where I found my first Chiffchaffs of the year and a single Cattle Egret before taking a walk out to the causeway and back at KGV where the only highlight was a drake Smew. Cattle Egret Drake Smew with a pair of Goldeneye year list now 170 ..read more

I've walked the foreshore at Rainham twice this week as I was collecting my grandson from school close by and on the second walk located a single Water Pipit for my trouble. Following on from these short walks I visited Frampton today with Jim in the hope of adding another year tick or two in the limited time I now find for my hobby. We arrived at 7.30 and found the Lesser Yellowlegs on the pool by the car park before it flew to the far corner of the marsh. Ruff and Redshank were present along with Pintail and Wigeon. A large herd of Whooper Swan flew over calling before we moved on down the t ..read more

I returned to the Loughton Waxwings this morning, being only half a mile from home I just had to do it and enjoyed a couple of hours watching these cracking winter visitors and bumped into a few local birders to which is always good ..read more

I've seen Waxwings a couple of times this year and I've had Waxwings in Loughton before, in fact I've had them in the garden on a couple of occasions over the years. Waxwings haven't been seen in Loughton or at least haven't been reported as seen since 2013 so when reports came through of some by Roding Valley School on 10th February I took a look but couldn't find them. Again on 24th February "a flock" was reported on Vere Road so again I took a look around with no joy and I was starting to think they could be just mis ID'd Starlings but when a report came out today of 22 by the Wickes store ..read more