Tim Webb's flown the nest this week, so Des Garrahan - RSPB London's Local Group Officer - is sitting in on the London blog:
One of the beauties of being new to birding is that every time you go out you see something you’ve never spotted before. If you have a list – and trust me I don’t – you’ll be ticking off new species by the handful.
I was up early last Saturday to join the RSPB Central London Group on their trip to the River Lee Country Park. For me this was a trip across London, from Kingston in the south west to Cheshunt in the north east and I was greatly cheered to discover that Stuart Maconie is currently on Radio 4 very early doing Ramblings. Early weekend rises for us working folk aren’t all bad you see.
The River Lee Country Park, part of the Lee Valley Regional Park, stretches from Waltham Abbey to Broxbourne and, funnily enough, follows the course of the River Lee. It’s extremely well served by public transport. The numerous old gravel pits dotted around the park have been transformed and now teem with wildlife. The park’s home to internationally important numbers of wildfowl, including bittern, smew, goosander and kingfisher. I didn’t see any of these though.
I did get to see lapwings, which I don’t get on my birdfeeder at home that’s for sure. Looking out across the Hall Marsh Scrape from the Teal Hide, I got to see hundreds. Those more knowledgeable in our little group, which was everybody, tell me lapwing tend to nest in colonies of several pairs, on the ground, where they are quite easily counted. They form pairs that last through the breeding season, so populations are quoted in breeding pairs. In winter, they may gather in large flocks on open fields, but can be seen throughout the year on wet grasslands.
Meandering through the park, stopping every so often to look at plentiful redwing and fieldfare, we were greeted by a colony of yellow siskins. These raucous little finches live at treetop level and it was thought we were looking at around 200. (Though how people manage to estimate this is beyond me.) They seemed to be having a great time surging from tree top to tree top in choreographed patterns.
If one of the beauties of being new to birding is seeing something different every time you go out, one of the even better beauties, it seems to me, is to be able to do it close to where you live accompanied by a small group of knowledgeable companions, only too willing to let you know all about what you’re looking at. Greater London is currently served by 11 RSPB Local Groups. They all offer a variety of activities, open to members and non-members alike, and most definitely are, as the blurb says, a great way to meet friendly, like-minded people in your area, while learning more about birds and wildlife.