Skip to main content

Amwell

As I had to go over to East London yesterday I took the opportunity to go up to Amwell which I hadn't visited for some time. Since my last visit the lakes have been taken over by the Herts and Middlesex Trust who have put access with hides and a nature trail. It makes seeing the birds a lot easier but has also made the whole area seem tamed and less exciting.
Despite the improvements the first spottings of interest were while crossing the canal with a cock reed bunting perching in the bushes and a pair of common terns flying along the cut. On the margins of the lake were lapwings, one bird with a magnificent crest as well as a variety of roosting water fowl and cormorants. According to the notice board redshank were nesting and I managed to see one at the waters edge as well as an oystercatcher fly across the lake. Other birds of note were heron, shoveller and gadwall. When I first visited this site around 20 years ago there was a pair of egyptian geese in residence, either they didn't breed or their descendents moved on long ago.

I did have an interesting conversation with another birder who had been getting excellent photographic results simply by holding his iPhone up to the eyepiece of his telescope. I experimented with my rather cheaper Samsung without much success but will get my own scope out of the cupboard and see if I can improve.

This morning it was nice to see a goldfinch in the front garden but my blood pressure took a turn for the worse reading an article in the Bucks Examiner about our local "ancient woodland" by a journo who clearly had no idea what the expression means. By no streatch of the imagination should Cowcroft Wood have been so described as it is very clearly secondary woodland on top of old brick and tile working.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Not as Quiet as I Thought

 The garden has seemed very quiet with hardly any birds seen but I hadn't been explicitly looking. I have just started putting a little food out in the front and in 24 hours have seen Robin, Great and Blue Tits and Magpies landing in my tiny front garden. Yesterday I heard a song that was unusual to me which the Merlin app identified as a Blackcap. Unfortunately for me the bird was ensconsed in the middle of my Forsythia which is still in full leaf and I couldn't get a sighting. This afternoon I saw Robins in the garden and corvids overhead. I set Merlin running while I swept fallen leaves from the front path. The app identified Robin, Rook, Wren, Jackdaw, Greenfinch and Blackbird. I also heard Parakeets but not while the app was running. 
Post a Comment
Read more

Kites Spreading East

 I haven't been posting much due personal matters but still have my eyes open. One thing that has struck me is the eastward spread of birds of prey. I have seen buzzards over Havering-atte-Bower but the big suprise in the past month as been a red kite over the M25 near Stapleford Abbotts in Essex. The skys still look empty by Chiltern standards though. A nice little spot last week was a goldcrest during a visit to Kew Gardens.  I have downloaded the Merlin app which supposedly identifies birdsong. I have had little opportunity to try it out but a quck test in the garden showd that it correctly told me that I could hear jackdaws and a robin. I look forward to using it on the coast to see if it can distinguish the various waders for me. 
Post a Comment
Read more

Forest of Dean

I had a day in the Forest yesterday, walking and then a ride on the preserved railway. The trouble with woodland is that you don't get the rapid views of multiple species that you get in wetlands. However, after parking at the Nags Head reserve I walked down to the Lower Hide. The ponds were pretty well down to muddy pools and I was treated to the unusual site of what must have been a family of nuthatches bathing. I had lost the sense of scale through the bins and I wasn't sure what I was looking at until a robin hopped into view to give me a relative size. The real treat was a nuthatch working its way up an oak tree. I then walked through the forest to Bix Slade and down the line of the old tramway to the wharf on the old railway by Cannop Ponds. No manarin ducks this time but I did see tufties, moorhen, and both pied and grey wagtails. I followed the railway back to the road, crossed back over the Cannop Brook and planned to follow a forestry track back to the reserve. Howe...
Post a Comment
Read more