Well, I guess the point of a walk in nature in May is to see what is in flower, what birds are singing, and which insects have emerged (in other words, it’s all about sex). The first warbler to make itself heard was the Blackcap, with many singing males trying out different brief songs. They were mixed in with Garden Warblers, which have a distinctly longer and more even song. A Cetti’s Warbler or two sang their loud abrupt call chwitipitit, chwitipitit: once heard, never forgotten. I couldn’t find any Sedge or Reed Warblers by the river for some reason. In the thorny scrub, a couple of Chiffchaffs sang their names, and many Whitethroats rasped out their short scratchy song, flying up to the tops of Hawthorn bushes and hopping about for the optimal perch.
A Little Egret flapped slowly across the lake: it would once have been thought a wonderful sighting, but the species has happily spread northwards and is now quite common on British coasts and lakes.
I was however delighted to hear the wheezing spring call of a male Greenfinch. It was until recently a common bird around towns and villages, but the population was halved by the Trichomonas parasite in the 2000s. Here in London it almost completely disappeared, and it is only slowly recovering.
I glimpsed one damselfly, probably a Common Blue.
Chicken of the Woods fungus on a fallen Poplar. Some find it delicious, others terrifying!
A handsome parasitic wasp, on the hunt for caterpillars
A quiet sunny day in October – probably no migrants or winter ducks – perhaps it’ll just be a peaceful walk in the fresh air. Not a bad thing.
One of several Migrant Hawkers … the only one that obligingly perched for the camera
Among the brambles, a dragonfly flashed past; then another, patrolling up and down, inspecting a third one perched stock-still. They were small Hawkers, slim and with a lot of blue, and yes, they were definitely Migrant Hawkers, small Aeshnids that fly pretty late in the year. The patroller saw off a couple of bees or wasps: that’s quite aggressive, given that those insects can deliver a sting fatal to other insects.
Something hopping about in a Willow down by the water caught my eye, so I raised my binoculars, and was at once rewarded by an excellent view of a Chiffchaff, which helpfully called “Hweet” repeatedly to identify itself from the similar-looking Willow Warbler (not specially found in Willows), which says “Hoo-eeet” a bit more disyllabically. I had time to admire its bold eye-stripe before it disappeared into the foliage.
A few minutes further, a REALLY LOUD high-pitched chattering, — such a big sound that it hurt my ears. On a branch above the lake was silhouetted a small bird with a long heavy beak – it had to be a Kingfisher. At that moment, another Kingfisher flew up, hovered for a moment, chattering, and both birds raced off. Well!
Something heavy splashed into the water, leaving ripples. I peered through the branches. A Cormorant took off with noise and effort; another; and three more. A Little Egret joined them, white with short rounded wings and long conspicuous primary flight feathers spread out individually like fingers.
Hawthorn heavy with berries
The path past the fishing lake was flooded after the recent storm, from its bone-dry state all summer.
The Hawthorns were glowing a rich red, heavy with berries. Soon the winter thrushes, Redwings and Fieldfares, will arrive and feast on them.
Rabbit Latrine
I looked down. In the middle of the track, an enormous latrine — for Rabbits. Hundreds of little round pellets of differing ages, some fresh, many dry and crumbly (I didn’t try to rub them) formed a miniature cobbled pavement. Did you know that Rabbits always used the same toilet? Now you do. Perhaps it help to avoid giving information to predators like the Red Fox about where the Rabbits are today, so the extra effort of, er, going to the toilet pays for itself in increased safety.
In the horse field, this year’s foals were still staying close by their mothers, who went on grazing unconcernedly; a foal eyed me nervously as I went by.
At the Solar Farm, a small tractor whirred up and down, cutting the grass. Seems a shame that they can’t follow the excellent lead of Thames Water, who use a flock of Sheep to keep the grass short around their reservoirs the other side of the railway line. Still, it’s clean green energy, for the most part.
Just a quiet autumn walk on a sunny day. Nothing remarkable to report.
The presenters on Radio 4’s PM programme said that we needed an Awesome Nature Walk to lift our spirits during this renewed Covid Lockdown. Happily, we had already planned to go on one, and here it is: an Awesome Nature Walk at Wraysbury Lakes.
Sketch Map of the walk as it feels when I’m on the path (rather than mere cartographic accuracy, whatever that is)
The walk begins near the road bridge over the Colne Brook at the bottom of the map, which is by a repair garage. I’ve drawn the sketch map to give something of the feeling of the route while I’m walking it, rather than attempting to make an objective map.
The Area’s Natural and Unnatural History
The area is just outside the M25 ring motorway that informally defines London’s boundary; Heathrow Airport is just inside that, so in normal times (hmm) there is a plane overhead every 90 seconds. Down on the ground, there are numerous lakes which all started life as gravel pits. The River Thames laid down great amounts of sand and gravel in its wide flood plain during the Pleistocene, and the various Flood Gravels now form valuable building materials. Extraction round here has finished, but there are active pits a bit further afield. The pits go below the water table so they fill up by themselves. The large Reservoir is a bit different – it has an enormous high earth bank all around it, so the water level is high above the surrounding ground level (maybe there was gravel extraction there too before the Reservoir was built). A railway runs across the area; it can be crossed at a pedestrian level crossing with a pair of stiles and a lot of looking both ways. To the south of the lakes is an attractive area of thorn scrub with Hawthorn, Dog Rose, Spindle, Bramble and suchlike, with quite a few trees, all very good for wildlife. Down by the lake edges and the Colne Brook are many large Willows and Poplars which grow quickly, lean over, fall, and sprout up anew, forming a constantly-changing cycle of growth and regeneration, and providing cover and roosting-sites for warblers and water-birds.
The lakes have variously been repurposed – one is used by the sailing club, though I more often hear the clatter of rigging vibrating against sail-less masts on windy days than people actually sailing. Another is a strictly private fishing lake, protected by fierce signs and fiercer fences which must have cost a fortune to put up. The lake by the start of the walk is open to wildlife and fishing is forbidden; a delightful trio of icons make it clear that running with a large carp under your arm is forbidden, as is spear-fishing (or is that a black line crossing out a standing fisherman diagonally); frying fish on a griddle is not allowed, though nothing is said about making fish stew in a saucepan, interpret the icon how you will.
South of the scrubland is a pleasantly scruffy pony-field with scattered thorn-bushes and rough grass dotted with tufts of Alfalfa. It rises to a low hill which was once a municipal landfill dump. For some years the dump was grassed over and the ponies roamed all over it; then men came and installed deep pipes to sample and carry away the presumably polluted groundwater; finally, a sizeable array of solar panels was installed and fenced off, complete with security cameras, so ponies and walkers had to make a detour around the array.
So — airport, motorway, gravel-pits, railway, landfill, post-industrial leisure activities, it’s pretty much the classic Urban or Peri-Urban nature area.
The Walk
The bridge over the Colne Brook offers a glimpse of calm nature; the water babbles softly among the waterweeds, and two Kingfishers dark on triangular wings just above the surface. One swerves into a U-turn, catching the sun to reveal its brilliant blue-and-turquoise plumage. What a moment to start a walk.
We dive gratefully down the few steps from the pavement to the path: the pavement by the bridge is half-occluded by unclipped bushes, and the traffic whizzes past perilously close to unwary walkers.
In the sudden quiet we peer through the trees to the lake. A gang of twenty Cormorants is on the water, with a group of Mute Swans.
The path is bordered with Willows and coarse herbs; a patch of colourful Comfrey, once used to help knit broken bones, attracts some Common Blue Damselflies. At a gap in the Willows, a Cetti’s Warbler sings its abrupt, loud song. Some Migrant Hawker Dragonflies scoot too and fro beside the water, their transparent wings whirring, their long slender bodies glittering blue.
Little Egrets, Grey Herons, and Cormorants roosting and preening in the Willows beside the lake: not bad for an Urban Nature Walk
We come to a patch of reeds where we can see right across the lake. A Chiffchaff flits between bushes. On the far side is a bank of Willows, several with protruding dead branches. Perched on these are a few Grey Herons, half-a-dozen Cormorants, and most excitingly three Little Egrets — small white herons with black legs and yellow feet: uncommon visitors here. All of these are predators, feeding on fish and small animals like frogs; the Cormorants fish by diving from the surface, while the herons stand by or in the water, looking out for prey.
The track through the thorny scrub is bright with Rose and Hawthorn fruits — “Hips and Haws” in the fine old country phrase, rich with double entendre, glowing in different shades of red. Across a wide patch of Teasels and Burdocks and Thistles, all tall and prickly in their differing ways, more Hawthorn bushes are still in green leaf but bursting with red fruits, so they are red and green at once, which you might have thought impossible, but there it is, spectacular.
We swing through the kissing-gate and into the pony-field. The animals barely glance at us, the rich grass is clearly far more interesting. “Alfalfa” apparently means “King of Herbs” in Arabic; it was supposedly the finest pasture for grazing animals from goats to camels.
The path rounds the Solar Array; I guess it’s good to know that more and more of our energy is renewable, even if an Electric Vehicle, with its large price-tag, doubtful driving range, and complicated charging arrangements if like me and many city-dwellers, you don’t have a front drive to park and charge it on, is still perhaps a bridge too far. It does feel as if, with one more push, there could be charging points everywhere and affordable prices, and suddenly it’ll look not exotic but obvious. Five years, maybe? Who knows, but at least it’s coming.
Glorious Indian Summer weather – 26C – in late September was too good to miss, so I strolled around Wraysbury Lakes in shirtsleeves. I was rewarded with the sight of plenty of Common Blue butterflies (the females brown); Greater Spotted and Green Woodpeckers; Cormorants, Little Egrets, and a Hobby gracefully searching for late dragonflies (Migrant Hawker, Common Darter) in the fine warm weather.
The Swale National Nature Reserve, seen here looking southwest from Shellness, is an extensive area of brackish saltings, formerly saltmarsh (top right), with a shelly beach and rich mudflats (left) beside the Swale, the channel that separates the Isle of Sheppey from mainland Kent. A Second World War blockhouse is in the distance.
To reach Shellness one has to jolt very slowly along a long, straight, dusty, potholed track, minding out for one’s shock-absorbers. The reward is a magically quiet, spacious realm of … nothingness. Wide mudflats with occasional Shelducks. Wide horizons. Long empty shelly berms above empty windswept beaches. Sea kale. Sea lavender. Sea campion. Sea everything. The song of skylarks over the wind.
A Meadow Pipit chooses a good vantage point on the lichen-covered blockhouse.
The cry of a Black-Tailed Godwit over the marsh draws my attention to an elegant medium-sized wader with its long straight bill and agile flight. On the groynes and mudflats are plenty of cheerful Oystercatchers, resting or foraging in little groups. A Little Egret flaps distinctively past.
Beside the path is a little beach, marked off with a sign, posts and a plastic rope for a “rare” colony of Little Terns. I scan it with binoculars, and am lucky enough to catch one in flight; it lands out on the mudflat, its long wings poking out past its tail, a slender sea-swallow.
Three Oystercatchers feeding on the Swale mudflats
Even as I parked up, some chunky Corn Buntings flitted overhead giving their sharp calls. They were once common in farmland everywhere. A single Swallow flew past.
Sea Campion
Along the mudflats occasional Ringed Plovers went their solitary ways. The telescope showed little groups of Shelducks in quite large numbers — perhaps I saw 50 all told. A few Black-Headed and Herring Gulls, and as always a few Starlings (convinced they were waders) visited the marsh. A sudden flock of a hundred Dunlins, wheeling and sweeping together, made me catch my breath, a glimpse of wild beauty.
Sea Beet, the origin of Spinach Beet, our favourite green leafy vegetable
Over the marsh, Skylarks kept lifting up for their song-flights, pouring out their astonishing, continuous, rich melody until they were almost invisibly high in the sky. It was impossible not to think of Shelley’s poem To a Skylark (“Hail to thee, blithe spirit, bird thou never wert …”), so marvellously immaterial did they seem in the wind and the bright sky.
At the little headland, bounded by a muddy, marshy creek, a Redshank flew up, piping.
This Yellow Wagtail landed just in front of me at the end of the walk, hawking quietly for flies, mostly on foot.
As I returned, a Yellow Wagtail, seemingly almost tame, walked unconcernedly along the path in front of me. I ate my picnic sitting below the dyke out of the wind, absorbing the space and sunshine, my heart full of birdsong.
Northward Hill, looking over oakwood, scrub, grazing marshes, and river
Well there are some things one just has to do, even if it means braving the traffic. Nightingales, once common all over the south of England, can now only be heard in a few special places, and Northward Hill is one of them. There are some others in the southeast, like Lodge Hill, and guess what, they want to build houses all over it. Better go and enjoy the birdsong while it lasts.
A very shy Wall Brown, now a mainly coastal butterfly, the first I’ve seen for years
I was greeted by the song of blackbird, chaffinch, robin, song thrush, and wren as I walked in. A few ‘whites’ – large white, orange tip, green-veined white – skittered about as I reached the attractively rough scrub of hawthorn in full May blossom, blackthorn, wild pear, wild plum, and wild cherry, topped by the occasional whitethroat singing away scratchily.
Into the woods, with a handsome old cherry orchard on the right. Some of the oaks were straight out of Lord of the Rings, splendidly gnarled, knobbly, with massive trunks and holes to hide a good few goblins in.
Nightingale country: a fine old Oak. It looks to have been pollarded at about 12 feet up some centuries ago, so it was probably cut to that height while smaller wood was coppiced all around it.
And yes, sure enough, a nightingale obliged by singing its hesitant but amazingly rich and varied song from the thick cover. A little further, another; and a cuckoo kindly sang its unmistakable song from an oak almost in front of me, then with a ‘gok’ call flew, sparrowhawk-like, from the tree, a special sight.
Down to the hide overlooking the pool in the top photo; I wasn’t expecting more than a coot and maybe a mallard, but there were breeding lapwings chasing off the crows; breeding oystercatchers, and an avocet sitting with them; and a couple of solitary little egrets, stalking and stabbing at small fish or frogs. A redshank gave its wild teuk-teuk-teuk call and flashed its wingbar briefly.
Little Egret Stalking
Overhead a few swallows flitted about, and three swifts raced over the marsh.
The Hoo Peninsula is still a wild, spacious, lonely place, even with the swelling villages. You can see the Shard and Canary Wharf in the distance (some 30 miles); the river with its cranes and giant ships is ever-present; but the North Kent Marshes are special, as is Northward Hill with its fine old woods, still unspoilt for birds. Go and see it while you can.
Fish and Chips to Take Away, with watchful Herring Gull Customer, Hastings
Fish Stall, netted against Herring Gulls, Hastings. The stallholder reported that they had lost a Dover Sole and a Plaice to gulls in the past few days, so the netting is anything but purely decorative. Customers choose through the netting, and then pay and collect through the quickly closed door!
A fine Plaice … stainless steel sculpture, Hastings. The rainbow coloration is created by the heat of welding the spots on to the skin, forming thin layers of oxide which interfere with light (structural coloration).
Rowan in leaf, flower and fruit, Wakehurst Place
Golden-Ringed Dragonfly, Wakehurst Place
Wheatear, below Pett cliffs, which are inhabited by Fulmars; the gulls were accompanied by noisy Oystercatchers, and a Little Egret
Not illustrated are the family of three Spotted Flycatchers and the Redstart surprisingly seen in a Sussex hedge! At this time of year they could easily be migrants from somewhere further north, of course. The Peregrine falcon that had a go at a Rook, however, was probably a local.
Today I set out between the showers to survey the Swifts, if any, near Chiswick Mall. Equipped with a map and instructions, I chose six viewpoints at road junctions, and cycled between them, keeping a sharp eye out. By St Nicholas’ Church, three House Martins wheeled overhead, but no Swifts.
Up the Mall, near Chiswick Lane South, one Swift hawked high over the river, as did a pair of House Martins, quite an encouraging sight:. There were six nests in good condition on Field House, and within a minute I saw two Martins fly in and out of a nest.
Down the beach in front of Chiswick Eyot, a Little Egret trotted up and down in the water, showing off its elegant figure and yellow feet, and stabbing rapidly at invisibly tiny fish.
Nil to report at Eyot Gardens, despite the handsome tall terrace of red brick houses that once held many House Martin nests. No malice had been shown the colony: probably the loss is due to the dangers of the Sahel (and the guns of the Mediterranean).
Round the corner in British Grove, I was surprised and delighted to see two Swifts overhead – quite high, twice the height of the buildings, so no indication of a nearby nest, but still nice to see them.
Cuckmere Haven with bar, lagoon, and wave-cut platform
Down in Sussex for a few days, we walked the Seven Sisters from Cuckmere Haven to the Birling Gap.
We had a taste of the scale of human interference with the world’s climate in the shape of a thick haze of pollution trapped by an anticyclone: on the Weald approaching Lewes, we could see the thick haze below the level of the South Downs, and taste the acridity on our tongues. On the coast itself, it was less noticeable in the sea breeze, but the visibility was much reduced with the Newhaven-Dieppe ferry quickly fading into the murk. The BBC warned of high local pollution (worst near Hastings) and an expert advised against strenuous exercise.
The photo of Cuckmere Haven had to be enhanced as it actually looked all washed out in the haze. The geography is interesting: the Cuckmere River emerges (as a dark horizontal line) through what looks from this viewpoint like a continuous shingle bar across the mouth of the valley. The ‘lagoon’ on the landward side of the shingle is part of a former meander of the river, now cut off as if it were an oxbow lake; the current watercourse is canalized with artificial embankments. In the background are vertical sea-cliffs of chalk, with softer (brown) sands above, eroding at a shallower angle. At the base of the cliffs is a white line of fallen chalk rubble, and a dark horizontal surface, a wave-cut platform of chalk (with dark seaweed). In the foreground is the slope of chalk grassland and (left centre) two wartime concrete pillboxes defending the haven.
Seven Sisters – coastal cliff erosion
Gingerly approaching the cliff edge at a crawl, I took this photo, showing a large cave in the chalk: the waves fracture and undercut the cliff at high tide, causing progressive and often sudden cliff falls. The coastline recedes by about 70cm per year, but this bland average conceals a very different reality: the cliff edge barely changes from one year to another, until in some specially violent winter storm, perhaps three to five metres of chalk grassland and hundreds of thousands of tons of chalk suddenly collapse all at once into a gigantic white heap on the beach. The cave in the photo has created an overhang of more than 10 metres; it will certainly collapse one day in the next few years.
The walk was constantly accompanied by the song-flights of Skylarks, and their darting duels low over the grass. A few Ravens flew about the cliffs, and many Jackdaws; a pair of Carrion Crows mobbed a Raven; a few Magpies brought the number of members of the Crow tribe up to four. Near Birling, Chiffchaffs crept about an orchard, and Blackcaps dived into gorse bushes. Hundreds of Brent Geese flew Eastwards in V-shaped skeins or long lines half a wingspan above the waves. Four or five Little Egrets darted about the Cuckmere Haven lagoon, spearing small fish: a century ago they were hunted to local extinction for their plumes, used for elegant ladies’ hats. The RSPB was founded partly as the “Fin, Fur and Feather League”, a women’s campaign against the cruel and pointless use of animals in fashion that became a major force in bird conservation. In the last thirty years or so they have quietly returned to the south coast and are increasing in numbers.
It was too sunny and warm to sit at a desk writing, so I took bicycle and binoculars and went along the Thames path to the Wetland Centre. Even in a T-shirt it was warm work, feeling more like an English July (ok, that’s not saying much) than the last day of November .
Afternoon sunbeams on a very warm Halloween at the Wetland Centre
Inside the Centre I passed some diminutive witches and warlocks: they seemed to be sweating uncomfortably inside their costumes. I took a swig of water and cooled off in a hide; two rare migrants, Green Sandpipers, bobbed daintily at the end of one of the little islands, dwarfed by a Black-Headed Gull and a Moorhen, neither of them particularly large birds. Their habit is not unlike that of the Common Sandpiper, but they lack the white streak that rises in front of the wing. One of them took flight, its slender dark wings and white belly giving it something of the look of a rather large and clunky House Martin. It felt very odd to be watching autumn migrants on such a summery day.
Over at the wader scrape, a Little Egret strutted and once fluttered across the shallow water; it is an uncommon visitor here, though becoming more usual along the south coast marshes and estuaries.
A Green Woodpecker bounded over the grazing marsh in its distinctive undulating flight, its red cap and green body showing beautifully in the hot sunshine, with a loud laughing call in case anybody was in any doubt what it was.
A Cetti’s Warbler sang its bold short song, Chwit-i-pit-i-pit, Chwit-i-pit-i-pit, as usual invisible deep in a reedbed.
Out on the open water, numbers of winter ducks are (oddly, given the summery weather) building up; several Shovelers dabbled; some dozens of Wigeon grazed; a few Teal, the drakes in glorious colour, swam nimbly about with some Gadwall.
Even on the way home, I had no need of a pullover. The BBC weather report confirmed what everyone instinctively knew: it was the warmest 31st of October ever recorded in Britain, with an astonishing 23.6 Celsius in London. Of course, a cold front is forecast.
P.S. The next morning was grey and rainy, autumn on the way. Two large grey Mistle Thrushes flew overhead, rasping out their wintry calls, like a boy blowing over a comb covered in tracing paper.
P.P.S. Four days later, after a clear starry night, the sun rose over a chilly town on a fine November morning. It was winter.
The English seem unemotional … except for their passion for nature
