31/1/11: Barnehurst and Bexleyheath multi-site birding

The white-cheeked male Blackbird was in my Barnehurst garden again today, the first time I'd seen it since I first spotted it early in the month - see 6/1/11 post. There were also 3 female and 2 other male Blackbirds.

Taking a long and round-about route to Bexleyheath Broadway, the ports of call and some of the species seen were as follows:

Bursted Wood (former Pitch and Putt course): 2 Long-tailed Tit, 1 Great Tit, 1 Blue Tit, 8 Wood Pigeon. Within the wood itself were 10 Grey Squirrels within a narrow segment of the eastern end of the site alone .....

Russell Park: Basically a recreational park that is pretty bleak for wildlife, but could easily be improved without compromising its main function. Blackbird, Robin, 2 Carrion Crow, 1 Wood Pigeon, 10 House Sparrow (north west corner hedging, others could be heard from other boundary hedges).

Hall Place North: 4 Blue Tit, 1 Great Tit, 2 Carrion Crow. Much less than usual about, probably because of the racket being made by Council contractors - 1 bloke driving a tractor and trailer, 2 inefficiently creating piles of leaves to scoop up using intrusively loud petrol blowers (a good old-fashioned rake would have been vastly quicker and quieter ....) and 3 more standing around chatting.

One of a number of roads around the Borough, the name of which alludes to a heathland past ....

Looking south from the top of Broomhill Rise, out beyond the A2 and over the valley of the Rivers Shuttle and Cray to the Joydens Wood area on the high ground beyond

Grass verge plants in Broomfield Rd included Parsley Piert, Buck's-horn Plantain and Spotted Medick.

The Warren, off Broomfield Rd. Somewhere I've never been before. A hill-top site with some open grass areas and a small amount of woodland. 1 Great Spotted Woodpecker, 1 Wren, 3+ Ring-necked Parakeets, 7+ Blue Tit, Great Tit (heard), 1 Blackbird, 1 Carrion Crow, 1 Robin, 1 House Sparrow.

Woodland at The Warren

Norway Spruce at The Warren. Presumably a 'guerilla planted' Christmas throw-out ...

Plant species at the Warren included this Iris foetidissima (a native species, but probably a garden escape here), of which there were about 24 plants, most youngish and clearly self-sown off this larger clump.

There were several Shining Cranesbill (Geranium lucidum) in a front garden on Mount Road, only the third place I've found it in Bexley Borough so far.

There was a Grey Heron flying east over Sandford Rd, near Danson Park, being chased by a lone Ring-necked Parakeet. It was then joined by a second Grey Heron.

Danson Park: There was still a significant amount of ice on the lake, though somewhat thinned out. 1 Green Woodpecker - my first for the site, feeding on grassland near trees south of the lake, 2 (possibly 4) Greenfinch, 2 Egyptian Geese, 2 Great Crested Grebe, 2 Mistle Thrush, 8 Cormorant, 3 Grey Heron (may have included the two seen earlier over a nearby road), circa 80 Wood Pigeon, 36+ Ring-necked Parakeets, 54 Canada Geese, Carrion Crows, 1 Magpie, Blue Tit, 2 Mute Swans, lots of Coot, Moorhen, Mallard and Black-headed Gulls.

A pair of Mallard stand on the still part-frozen lake at Danson Park, with the Mansion in the distance

A male Mallard hybrid (cross with a domestic duck) on Danson Park lake

The late afternoon sun is reflected off the lake at Danson Park

15/1/11: Birds of eastern Bexleyheath

First up, Martens Grove:

1 Green Woodpecker - my first record of this species here, feeding in a grassy glade with Pigeons, 1 Great Spotted Woodpecker - later heard drumming, 3 Goldfinch, 1 male Chaffinch, 1 Wren, 22+ Woodpigeon, several Ring-necked Parakeet, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Magpie, Carrion Crow and Robin.

Then round the corner to Shenstone Park and the 'pinched off' north-east 'enclave' of Hall Place North just over the main road:

Here the birds included 2 Mistle Thrush, 1 Wren and Ring-necked Parakeets.

Across a short section of footpath and I was into Hall Place North 'proper':

Of note were 1 Green Woodpecker, and four separate groups Ring-necked Parakeets heading west over Gravel Hill approaching dusk - totalling circa 43 birds.

There appeared to be no House Sparrows in the school playing field hedge on Gravel Hill, but there was a lot of chirruping from evergreen shrubs by the Council multi-storey car-park on Albion Rd - perhaps they decamp here in the winter for more protection?

6/11/10: Hyde Park - birds and Southern Oak Bush Cricket

A nice afternoon in Hyde Park with LNHS friends Miriam and her daughter Celeste.

Celeste is great at spotting 'bugs', and noticed this female Southern Oak Bush Cricket on the underside of one of the hundreds of London Plane leaves lying on the ground.

Good views were had of a foraging Green Woodpecker.

On the Serpentine were: two Mute Swans, two young Great Crested Grebes, Mallards, Tufted Ducks, Pochard, a male Shoveler, Canada Geese, Greylag Geese and a number of Black-headed Gulls.

9/5/10: From Sidcup to Hall Place North, via the Shuttle

Long walk back home from a celebratory Bexley Green Party post-election meal in Sidcup High Street. We got badly squeezed almost everywhere - but hey, we've got our first MP.

Some of the 'usual', but less frequent Bexley grass verge suspects along Station Rd - Buck's-horn Plantain, Bird's-foot Trefoil, Self Heal and Spotted Medick.

A Stinking Iris (possibly 'self sown') behind Sidcup station 'up' platform.

Hurst Rd - a Hart's-tongue Fern on Holy Trinity church, Lamorbey, and Thale Cress in the yard.

Field Madder in flower in a verge at the corner of Greenwood Close.

Pleasing sight of a mass of Cuckoo Flower in the lawn of a garden on Hurst Road - such a change from the usual car-parking / standard 'planting' / excessive mowing.

A Greater Celandine in the grounds of Hurst Community Centre.

Bexley Park Wood - good view of a Green Woodpecker. Bush Vetch (below) in flower by the River Shuttle near Parkhill Rd. Also here were Wood Dock and Hedge Woundwort (appears infrequent in the parts of the Borough I've botanised so far).

Bush Vetch (Vicia sepium)

Riverdale Rd alongside the River Shuttle

4 Long-tailed Tits were chasing each other in Riverdale Rd. Alder and a bunch of plants common to the Borough were along the river.

There were Greater Celandine in two gardens on Love Lane, and at least 7 Ranunculus acris - apparently the less common of the three common buttercup species hereabouts - outside the Royal Mail office on Bourne Rd.

At the bottom of the steps down from Bourne Rd to the A2, on the Hall Place side, was a lot of Danish Scurvy Grass. Further along the edge of the A2 were a lot of Geranium pyrenaicum , and a long strip of Tansy - again only occasionally found in these parts - north of the crossing of the River Cray. Also a Fennel.

The scrubland east of the A2 and south of Hall Place and the railway line from Bexley to Crayford - one map I have labels this as 'The Old Orchard'

This red-purple leaved garden cultivar-derived Prunus was just finishing flowering here

4 Rabbits were seen on this site today.

The Common Fumitory had been weeded out of the Hall Place shrub beds by over-zealous gardeners. What harm was it doing? There was a patch of Mouse-ear Hawkweed at the bottom of the Hall place North slope, near the tree line by Bourne Rd.

28/4/2010: Mining (or should that be milking?) Erith Quarry for new records

An unsuccessful attempt to find some reptiles on the site today, but plenty of other interesting things were seen.

Peacock butterflies were very much in evidence, with several being observed.

A rather ragged Peacock butterfly basks on a piece of rubble

Other butterflies seen were a Speckled Wood, a pristine Comma and a Holly Blue.

Birds included Chiffchaff - two were heard at once at one point, and one was finally seen in the flesh, singing in a fairly open position, a Greenfinch, a male Chaffinch, a Green Woodpecker (good views), 9+ Swifts overhead (my first of the year) and a Whitethroat. All in all there was a tremendous amount of bird song here.

There were a number of apple (or possibly pear) trees in flower on the site.

One of several flowering fruit trees - presumably from an old core or bird-sown

A rather battered grove of Gorse in flower towards the north west corner of the site - someone drove a vehicle through part of it at some point

Cherry tree in flower

A dark-leaved, pink-flowered Cherry elsewhere on the site was presumably a seedling from a garden cultivar.

Other escapes from cultivation were Raspberry canes and a Swedish Whitebeam.

A stand of Fennel not previously noted was found, with one bronzey-leaved plant amongst the green ones.

The best plant find was 16 specimens of Milk Thistle (Silybum marianum) amongst an unusually large number (circa 40) of Sun Spurge in a relatively bare patch of soil. This is an uncommon plant, possibly native, and in this instance probably a garden escape from seed. Besides the attractively white-veined leaves, it has a number of medicinal uses.

Milk Thistle amongst Sun Spurge

26/4/10 Gravel Hill, Hall Place and south of the Dartford Loop Line

A male Chaffinch was seen at the Erith Rd edge of Bursted Wood.

Some Brooms were in flower on the south-facing railway embankment just west of the Erith Rd bridge over the railway line.

A Red-tailed Bumblebee was the only insect around a strip of flowering Berberis darwinii at the junction of Highland Rd and Albion Rd, Bexleyheath.

A rather wayward pair of Mallard came down on a grass verge in Rossland Close, at the junction with Gravel Hill.

A Green Woodpecker was feeding along the shrub line at the top of the hill at Hall Place North (the parkland on the east side of Gravel Hill). At the bottom of the hill, near Bourne Rd, Thyme-leaved Speedwell - just coming into flower - was intermingled with Germander Speedwell. There was also some Slender Speedwell nearby.

In the newish shrub beds at the south east corner of the extended Hall Place car park parallel to Bourne Rd, there were 12 Common Fumitory growing up through the bark mulch, and not quite in flower yet. As far as I have been able to determine so far, this is a very infrequent plant, in the east of the Borough at any rate. No way were they going to overwhelm or inhibit the shrub planting, but it wasn't long before someone weeded them all out anyway...... A typicallly unintelligent, unimaginative and inflexible approach to vegetation management.

An attempt has been made to 'soften' the appalling car park recently built by the east side of the walled garden, and running right down to the river, with a couple of bits of ditch and an over-densely planted jumble of shrubs, full of natives, but some of them not indigenous to the local area. Is the assumption that half of them will die off?

Apart from the litter that had inevitably been blown - or thrown - into the ditches, and left there, there was a Grey Wagtail in one of them (and a Pied Wagtail on the roof of a building in the walled garden). Also several Celery-leaved Crowfoot just above the rather low water line. Here also, presumably brought in on the tyres of digging machinery, was a single plant of Shining Cranesbill (Geranium lucidum), my first record of it in Bexley, indeed in London south of the Thames.

Finds in the scrubby area (called The Old Orchard on one map I have) that is immediatly south of the railway opposite Hall Place, and on the east side of the A2, included the following (I haven't been here since I was a teenager in the 70s. My recollection - I have photos somewhere - is that is was then much more open, and people used to dig a Victorian (?) rubbish tip there for old bottles):

Rabbits
Dunnock
Long-tailed Tit
Pink-flowered, purplish-leaved Cherry (derived from garden cultivar)
Gorse
Broom
Marjoram
Hemlock
Ground Ivy
Hop

1/03/10: Sparrows, Redwings abound on Gravel Hill

Had to go foraging for vegan fodder in Bexleyheath, so went down to the parkland on the east side of Gravel Hill to see what was about before heading home.


Gravel Hill parkland looking east in the evening sun - young Broom plants at the edge of one of the brambly copses, with scattered large trees in the background

Since I got my first proper view of Stock Doves in east London the other week, I've scanned gaggles of Wood Pigeons locally to see if they harbour any. No such luck. The flock of 17 Wood Pigeons feeding in the grass were clearly all just that.

A Green Woodpecker was on the on ground at the margin of the narrow long grass strip at the north west corner of the site at the top of the hill, and two were later seen feeding together on the grass at the bottom of the hill.

A number of thrushes were hopping about down here, and I eventually managed to get reasonably close, though the widely-spaced trees and shortish turf provided little cover. I counted 44 birds and all of those I could get a positive ID on (the light wasn't great by now, and my binoculars aren't very powerful) were Redwings. They'll soon be heading north again, so this may be the last big flock I see before next winter.

As the light faded a Great-spotted Woodpecker swooped into a tall tree, shortly flying off after two other passing birds, but I could only see these in distant silhouette, so don't know what they were.

Other species in evidence were Carrion Crow, Magpie, Blue Tit, Robin and Ring-necked Parakeet.

As dusk fell the House Sparrows in the dense deciduous hedge along Gravel Hill road, bounding St. Columba's School, had settled down enough to allow a reasonably accurate count. I made it 126 individuals.

7/1/10: Lengthening bird list is pain in neck

Spent the afternoon wandering round Martens Grove and Barnehurst Golf Course in the snow, and am beginning to think I'm getting a grip on this birdwatching malarky.

It was all very pretty, but I hadn't expected to get so engrossed, so had no gloves which eventually made focussing the binoculars in a hurry and writing notes a bit difficult, as my fingers kept getting rather numb.

Also, standing in a wood and repeatedly tilting ones head back 45 degrees for extended periods of time, so as to try and see the bird you can hear is up in the tree above, but is somehow remaining out of sight despite the lack of leaves, gets a bit uncomfortable. As opposed, say, to staring at the ground looking for obscure plants .........

On the way, 10 (+?) Redwings had shot out of a Holly in a front garden on Barnehurst Rd as I approached. The plant was narrow and only about 12 feet tall. One bird had stayed behind and carried on eating the berries.

A number of 'usual suspect' species were seen at both sites - Wood Pigeon, Carrion Crow, Magpie, Ring-necked Parakeet, Blackbird, Blue Tit, Great Tit and Long-tailed Tit. Plus lots of Grey Squirrels.

The highlights in Martens Grove were:

A Treecreeper. This was spotted near the Stephen Rd. entrance, and good views of it were had working its way up the trunks of mature trees next to gardens on that road. If I've seen this species before it was a very long time ago, and I don't remember doing so. If I have, I doubt it was in the Barnehurst/Bexleyheath area.

Also a Nuthatch calling from the top of a big tree. Had a lot of trouble getting a clear view of this one - and I'm no good at identifying birds from their song yet. This is another species I've not seen in these parts before, at least since I picked up my wildlife recording baton again about 5 years ago - so making use of winter conditions to look out for birds properly is starting to pay dividends.

Martens Grove near the Stephen Rd. entrance

A couple of Oaks still had a lot of leaves attached

Footpath along the north side of Martens Grove

The uncommon Butcher's Broom near houses by the above-mentioned footpath. Possibly a garden escape, this is the only specimen I've found on this site, and the only other 'wild' one I know of in Bexley at present is in Lesnes Abbey Woods

The highlight of Barnehurst Golf Course was the Green Woodpecker that flew up from the rough 'wildlife area' on the north side of the site. A Wren was also feeding on the ground here.

The 'classic' view at the Barnehurst Golf Course site, looking north to the Cedar, Taunton Close and the railway line

Wildlife area looking east towards the Thames and Essex

There are two Gorse bushes here, one in a shady spot, and this superbly dome-shaped specimen out in the open and already in full flower

Gorse (one of my favourite native plants) in flower in the snow

Another indicator of the heathland 'heritage' / potential of the area: these are some of a handful of young Broom plants along the tree line at the foot of the bank to one side of the hole 3/12 fairway

Handsome specimen tree at Barnehurst Golf Course

31/12/09: Green end to year for my Barnehurst bird list

On Christmas day the following were seen in the garden - Blue Tit, Great Tit, Robin and, at dusk, a large Fox.

On Boxing Day 4 Long-tailed Tits came within about 6' of me as they fed unconcernedly in Forsythia branches above my head. A pair of Blue Tits flitted about on the sidelines sounding annoyed - or maybe expressing some safety concerns about my presence. The resident Robin has started to come within a couple of feet of me whilst I have been doing things like making sure my clumps of Snowdrops will be able to get through the mat of ground-covering Lesser Periwinkle, and turning a compost heap. It briefly did a passable impression of a Humming Bird before concluding that a spent Schizostylis flower stem did not provide a stiff enough landing platform.

There were 3 Wood Pigeons in the garden on the 27th.

On the 31st, taking a detour back from the shops, I saw a flash of green on the ground by the small car park at the west end the old Pitch and Putt course by Bursted Woods. I've never seen any of the local Ring-necked Parakeets on the floor before, so concluded - correctly - that it must be a Green Woodpecker. This it turned out to be once I had a good view of it foraging along the edge of the small bloc of trees here, from a vantage point about 30' away. Blue and Great Tits were also in evidence. A Magpie was nearby, and so were two Grey Squirrels. Two actual Ring-necked Parakeets were low down in a tree by the road up to the school.

Some fresh green leaves of Alexanders (a yellow-flowered umbellifer introduced by the Romans as a food plant) were picked by the hospital path and added to my evening meal, but had a disappointingly weak flavour. I shall cook them a bit less next time - and try some raw ......


Alexanders (Smyrnium olusatrum), usefully comes back into leaf in the autumn, as seen here on the southern margin of Bursted Woods, by the hospital entrance.