Chiltern Birder

I managed a trip to the Lee Valley Country Park yesterday. Not an intensive birding session, just a gentle stroll with the bins around the northern end of Forty Acres, Holyfield and back down alongside the Flood Relief Channel. Works to reprofile the islands and remove scrub meant that I saw flocks of lapwings in Forty Acres, something I have missed for the last few years. Somebody with a scope mentioned snipe as well. On the lake were a pretty standard collection of water fowl, but then unless you see a bittern or rail in the reeds that lake is normally quite predictable. Up at Holyfield I was surprised not to see any goosander, which are normally present at this time of year, and hoped in vain for smew. I did see a party of ruddy duck, a mature drake, a juvenile and a female. The high point was seeing a grebe take a fish. Of course he kept his back to use while I was trying to photograph him with the fish in his beak. Surprisingly there was not a single gull perched on the boom at Ho

The first snow of the winter came today. Not too bad up here but the need to earn a living meant that I had left the house before the birds were about. I did see a very handsome fox sheltering under a bush as the train was entering Rickmansworth though. With recent storms the Chess was finally well filled when I drove through Waterside last Sunday. It will be interesting to see for how long the flow is maintained through the spring and summer.

I had to pay a visit to my company's Chesham branch to day so, after the heavy rain over the bank holiday weekend I spent a little of my lunch hour checking out the state of the River Chess. Due to flash flooding a number of local premises had been sandbagged but under the Town Bridge the river had a flow that would have once been more appropriate to high summer. Finally there is water flowing in the river above Wright's Meadow. I won't feel that the river has recovered, however, until I see a grey wagtail in it again.