Valentines Day. What to do ?
As I fought my way through the sacks of cards littering my doorstep (hahahahaha) I had decided on only two plans for today. The London Wetland Centre then on to Charing Cross Hospital. Not because I'm sick or ill, but because the resident Peregrines have been observed mating a few times over the two days.
More about them later in the blog.
After yesterdays dreary dull wet weather, today was very fresh, very dry and fairly sunny and at the LWC it was unsurprisingly busy.
Love was definitely in the air for a pair of Canada Geese....
and for a pair of Egyptian Geese....
The Teals were pairing up...
as were the Wigeon......
The water levels across the marshes were quite high today. The photos below are both of the Peacock Tower, but the first one was taken from the Wader Scrape Hide and the second from the Wildside Hide....
I found only one Little Grebe during my short visit today, and he/she was fishing in the channel right outside the Peacock Tower....
Other birds pairing up were Robins. Below are a pair but I just couldn't get them in the same frame.....
After Nathalie and mine's success at discovering Bee Orchid rosettes at Heathrow a couple of weeks ago (click here for that blog post) I thought I'd check the regular bank at the LWC to see if theirs were coming up too, and they are. I only found two rosettes in this particular area, but that would fit with the two spikes that I saw in flower last June......
Keeping on the theme of bees, I also saw my first Buff-tailed bumblebee of the year today......
In between The Lodge and the Asian Short-clawed Otter enclosure there is a patch of evergreens. Today in those few trees we saw at least three Goldcrests, two Coal Tits and a ChiffChaff.
Best photo I could manage ? A Goldcrest's bum of course.....
I lost an hour of my life at the Wildside Hide looking for a Bittern. There are definitely two on site, possibly three, and one had been seen to fly from the area in to the middle reedbed channel earlier this morning. But despite searching and scanning I couldn't find any of them. So after a quick bite to eat (my one and only grumble about the LWC - the bloody price of the food !!!) I was on the bus back to Hammersmith and on the short walk to Charing Cross Hospital.
I hadn't even reached the Margravine Cemetery before I spotted one of the Peregrines perched on the corner of the nest ledge......
Before anyone starts haranguing me, this is a public site and I am allowed to mention where the Peregrines nest.
Normally we watch the Peres from the Cemetery, and I walked all around the hospital checking the usual perches before coming back to the nest ledge. This was the only view I had of one of them today. I think it is the male (Tom) but I could well be wrong. Either way he/she had a full crop and wasn't in a hurry to go anywhere.
Personally I was hoping to observe a mating - I'm a bit of a feathered bird pervert, sorry. But I made do with watching Tom (I think) preening and looking grand.
The Fulham and Barnes Peregrines (Tom and Charlie) started courtship on the 12th February this year, with their first mating captured on camera at 6.54am.
This is a week later than the 2015 records show.
Last year sadly none of the eggs were fertilised and they failed to hatch. It was a sad time, with Charlie still trying to incubate the eggs until well past their hatching due date. So talons crossed, we hope to see viable eggs laid in mid March.
For regular daily updates on these two beautiful urban Peregrines, please follow their Facebook page - FaB Peregrines
Despite the chill today, I enjoyed myself. It was good to see the regulars at the LWC - Birdy Phil, Posh Boy, Joe, Shaftin and Martin, and it was great to see at least one of the Peres on the nest ledge.
It wasn't until I was on my way home that I found out Birdy Phil had not only seen one of the Bitterns whilst I was stalking the FaB Peregrines, but he'd got a digi-scoped photo of said Bittern with a Heron.....
What a cracker !! Well done Philip Giles !!
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