Feb 092012
Here I go walking down a slippery footpath I could hear the sound of gulls over the fence. On inspection they were sitting on a nice warm factory roof – keeping their feet warm on the roof I found a mixed flock of herring gulls and black-headed gulls with magpies and jackdaws. Moving onwards to the marsh / sewerage works passing the lake which resembled an ice rink there was a pair of mallard and a coot.
On the right hand side are loads of reeds but no birds. With the lake behind me there was some scrub ahead where a pair of brightly coloured green woodpeckers took flight to the trees. In the trees were wood pigeon, blackbird and robin. Carrying on I came to Old Man Thames with a strong cold wind blowing off the river, I must have found ‘cormorant city’ some 20-30 mixed in with redshank, lapwing, teal, tufted duck and curlew. By now my toes were frozen and it was back to my car. A total of 16 species found and nice birding.
Neil