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

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