Tony Drakeford's Nature Notes (From Your Local Guardian)

Tony Drakeford's Nature Notes

7:40am Sunday 22nd February 2009 in Wandsworth By Tony Drakeford

Birdwatching is a most enjoyable pastime but I’m certainly not a ‘twitcher’, ie someone who dashes around the country listing as many rare species as possible.

While I respect and admire their dedication and enterprise I’m quite content to let them ‘twitch’ while I concentrate in a more relaxed manner on our common local birds, all of which are well worth studying in their different ways.

However, there are occasions when I accidentally bump into something special without even trying.

On two consecutive visits to Richmond Park by Beverley Brook in January I came across a little egret and even more unusual, a scarce winter visitor, the green sandpiper.

Both notable sightings that would have sent the twitchers pouring into the park had they known about them.

A few days later at the London Wetland Centre I joined a huddle of birdwatchers training their long lenses into the far distance where apparently three bitterns were sitting in the reeds.

On two consecutive visits to Richmond Park by Beverley Brook in January I came across a little egret and even more unusual, a scarce winter visitor, the green sandpiper.

Tony Drakeford

Now, the bittern is even more camouflaged than the snipe but I have to say, after staring for a few minutes at a motionless brown blob which I was assured was a bittern, my attention span started to waver and I began to watch the amusing antics of a dainty diving dabchick, some coots and three mallard drakes squabbling over a prospective mate.

The mallard is of course super-abundant and so well known that we barely give it a second thought, but if it were rare imagine the lengths birders would go to just to glimpse the drake’s magnificent bottle green head, clergyman’s collar and maroon breast.

In her own right the female is equally attractive but her soft muted plumage is designed to conceal her on the nest.

So, while the ‘twitchers’ strained to spot the bitterns I enjoyed close up views of some more colourful and co-operative common species.