River dance


Seeing that there seems to be so little about at the moment I thought that I would 'ring the changes' and do something completely different - but still within the uber patch. Hmmm, hardly different, is it Steve?...

Parking up in Mickleham Village, and crossing the A24, found me on the banks of River Mole, at this point a narrow affair. I then walked northwards, carrying on through to Common Meadow, Leatherhead, no more than a couple of miles in length but longer when you add on the meandering. It was a walk that I had not completed as a whole, having dived in-and-out over the years at various points of entry, and mainly during the summer months as the area is quite good botanically.

Highlight was a red-head Goosander (above), that fed happily in the water at Common Meadow (below) with the bird deciding, after ten minutes, that it had had enough of me, and flew on.


At least two Little Egrets were seen (Mickleham and Common Meadow) plus 5 Little Grebe, a Cormorant, 8 Grey Heron, 2 Common Buzzard, a male Sparrowhawk, 70 Redwing and - best of all - a calling Lesser Spotted Woodpecker close to the leisure centre.



One particular juvenile Grey Heron was stalking prey along the towpath. It was aware of me but decided not to move. After several minutes of clicking away at it with the bridge camera it decided to move on.

Comments

Simon Douglas Thompson said…
We've got a lot of goosander around here at the moment, shy birds but getting less so. Getting nearer the bank, and hopefully this weekend my camera!
9 January 2019 at 20:56
Steve Gale said…
The bird I photographed today kept its distance
9 January 2019 at 21:17
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"Kwowww"

On Tuesday evening, at 20.05hrs, I was taking out the rubbish, when I heard a call from south-west of the house. I froze, knowing what it was at once, but scarcely believing it. I had listened to this call on Xeno-Canto many times, getting ready for such a moment but not really considering it something that I would hear over the back garden. After 15 seconds the call came again from the blackness, now directly over head. Yes, there was no mistaking it! Another 20 seconds it called a third time - now further away to the north-east... "Kwowww" A lazy drawl, part bark, part yelp. A Bittern. Nocturnal flight-call. I went back inside and played the call on Xeno Canto just to make sure that I had remembered everything correctly. I had. Bloody hell, a Bittern over suburban Banstead! And only a week after an Arctic Skua had blessed me just a mile or so away. Sometimes the birding Gods do smile on you. To some birders these two species are just small fry, mere starters to the main cou
Read more

Mike Netherwood

Image
I first met Mike Netherwood at Beddington Sewage Farm in early 1975, me being an ultra-keen and ultra-green 16-year old birder, he some 20 years my senior. Mike, together with Ken Parsley, were the remnants of a once much larger ringing group which carried out the trapping and ringing of birds across the open expanse of the sewage farm. Whenever I bumped into them, which I often did, they would both tolerate my many questions about what they had seen and trapped and listen to me waxing lyrical about my own observations. Over the coming months they showed me how they caught the birds, allowed me to witness the ringing and measuring of them and, if I were very lucky, allow me to help them out by holding mist-net poles, carrying bird bags or writing down (scribing) the data that they were collecting into notebooks. By the summer of 1976 I had joined them, proudly in possession of my trainee ringer's permit. For the next three years (until I 'defected' to Dungeness) I spent man
Read more

To tell it like it is, or not...

Image
I am grateful to Gavin Haig (Not Quite Scilly) who drew my attention to an opinion piece, penned by Matt Phelps, which appeared in the November issue of 'Birdwatch' magazine, entitled 'Positive Approach', which I have now read. In it, he suggests that there is too much negativity being posted on social media regarding the state of our birding world, which is then acting as a deterrent towards a younger generation in adopting conservation and wildlife study. He also suggests that a lot of this negativity is being generated by older birders, and that these old timers keep banging on about the 'good old days' which isn't helpful in encouraging the youth to pick up a pair of binoculars and get out into the field. Does he have a point? Now, I am undeniably an older birder, and I am also guilty of having posted, blogged, written and spoken about the slump in bird and invertebrate numbers. I also like nothing better than to revisit my notebooks and share in the hi
Read more