Scruffy but we loved it – the leaky old portakabin hut doubling as kitchen, volunteer room, office, and museum
All posts by Ian Alexander
A Windy Walk at Wraysbury
Wind or not, a sunny winter’s day is too good to miss, so I wrapped up warm and squelched through the mud around Wraysbury Lakes. In the car park, a Grey Wagtail hawked for insect life. Among the few ducks on the lakes were some Goldeneye, one of the winter specialities of the area. The Great Crested Grebes had most of the water to themselves, looking predatory with their sharp spear-beaks.
On the meadow, four Stock Doves got up – an under-recorded species if ever there was one, as people take them for feral or wood pigeons. A Green Woodpecker gave its ringing Plue-Plue-Plue call, really loudly: spring is on the way, honest! The Jackdaws wheeled and dived in the strong wind, totally at home. A Buzzard soared with barely a wingbeat, turning on well-rounded wings with fanned tail. Towards the end, the bushes thrummed with twittering Goldfinches.
But the best thing wasn’t a bird at all, but the Mistletoe hanging from a bare beech branch. Let’s hope it spreads.
First Song Thrush of the Year
Today it was wild, wet, and windy, and the city streets were frighteningly slippery as my bicycle skeetered about like a dinghy running before the wind. A tree fell across the path on the common. But next to Gunnersbury Triangle, a Song Thrush sang its beautiful rich fluty song, the repeated notes carrying clearly over the noise of the wind and traffic.
Jet Contrails over Chiswick at Dawn
Greater and Lesser Stag Beetles Over-Wintering at Gunnersbury Triangle
January: Cold. Grey. Gloomy? Not Now!
January. Cold. Grey. Gloomy.
Well, not always. On a clear early morning, Venus gleamed brightly in a deep blue sky, and the waning Moon shone over the city, giving it a wintry beauty.
On the common later that morning, the harsh blowing-over-a-comb buzz of a Mistle Thrush alerted me to a flock of winter thrushes flying up into the trees. As they moved along, the chack-chack calls, medium size, and occasional flashes of handsomely contrasting brown and grey backs showed that most of them were Fieldfares, down here from the snowy wastes of Scandinavia or Russia to enjoy the relatively balmy warmth and accessible food of Chiswick in January.
In the Gunnersbury Triangle nature reserve, as I rounded a corner a male Sparrowhawk finished his drink in a hurry and flew up from the gravelly ditch, an intimate moment.
Winter Work at Gunnersbury Triangle – Desilting the Seasonal Pond
Three Pelicans in St James’s Park
Putting the Gran Turismo into Gunnersbury Triangle!
A Winter Task: Digging out Wet Woodland
