To the Welsh Harp on an overcast and windy Sunday morning
in late November, the intention being to do some birdwatching. Officially
called the Brent
Reservoir, it’s located in the corner to the west of the Edgware Road and
to the north of the North Circ and straddles the boundary between the London
Boroughs of Barnet and Brent. It’s a protected area (a Site of Special
Scientific Interest, one of 37 such places in Greater London, to be precise). I
was rather hoping to be able to spot a few ducks, and colder weather can offer
the opportunity to spot a few rarer species that have been known to visit
inland lakes or reservoirs in winter; Goldeneye or Smew, perhaps? Unlikely, but
if you don’t go and look, you’ll never know.
One duck that I wasn’t going to see (although according
to my records I’ve seen one there before, four years ago) was a Ruddy Duck. Brightly
coloured, with copper wings and blue beaks, Ruddies are native to the Americas,
and in Britain they established themselves in the wild after escaping from
captivity in the mid-twentieth century. Unfortunately they also spread to
Europe, and became a problem in Spain when they inter-bred with the endangered (and
closely related) White-headed Duck; this in turn has led to a cull of Ruddies
in Britain and Europe which has severely reduced the population (when reporting
on this last year, the Telegraph
even noted that the Welsh Harp “was a popular ruddy spot but is now,
officially, cleansed of them”). This has been supported by the RSPB (to quote its
website: “either we act to stop ruddy ducks spreading from the UK, or we
stand by and watch as the white-headed duck is pushed ever closer to extinction
… failure to tackle the spread of ruddy ducks in Europe could condemn the
white-headed duck to extinction”); it’s one of those cases where two options
are available, and neither of them are particularly pleasant.
Waterfowl-wise, we quickly spotted the likes of Coot, Mute
Swan, geese of the Canada and Egyptian varieties, Tufted Duck, Moorhen and Mallard.
Closer inspection with the binoculars soon confirmed that we had Shoveler and
Gadwall as well (I have often wondered about Gadwalls, the males of which are
not exactly distinctive as far as ducks go and which I don’t recall seeing much
when I was younger; had they really been there all along, and I’d mistaken them
for particularly grey female Mallards?).
We moved along to a hide (an open-to-the-elements one
which, although the metal bench was rather cold, was clean and provided shelter
from a small outpouring of rain). From here, we noted Cormorant, Grey Heron and
various gulls, and were momentarily baffled by a pair of ducks on the far
shoreline which had their heads tucked down, meaning we couldn’t decide whether
they were Teal or Wigeon. We waited patiently until one of them decided to go
for a swim, following which its red-and-green head left us in no doubt that we
were watching a Teal (several more of which were subsequently spotted). Elsewhere,
a pair of stationary small-ish brown-coloured ducks turned out, once they
moved, to be female Tufted Ducks.
Great Crested Grebes in their winter plumage were noted,
although there was one that was a little greyer in the neck and darker in the
head that we momentarily thought might be something else (later checks in my
copy of the RSPB Complete Birds of
Britain and Europe, a volume far too large and heavy for use as a field
guide, raised the tantalising possibility that we’d seen a Red-necked Grebe in
winter plumage, although a quick peek in the London Bird Report 2013 poured cold water on this, with just two
reported sightings having been made in the London area in that year; much
though I’d like to have seen a rare water-based bird, I’m not going to kid
myself that our sighting was anything other than a Great Crested Grebe).
Another, smaller grebe was easily identified as a Little Grebe.
Beyond the water, we took in three kinds of tit, three
members of the crow family, some Robins, a Chaffinch and plenty of pigeons. I
had wondered if we’d see Bramblings (a winter visiting finch) but that wasn’t
to be; some other time, perhaps. Ring-necked Parakeets were heard but not seen.
There were as usual several small brown birds that proved to be unidentifiable
due to their being too fast for us and/or too well concealed in the reeds. Best
of all was a female Kestrel hovering overhead; in all, we notched up 29
confirmed species on a windy but satisfying day watching the birds.
No comments:
Post a Comment