This Birding Life (11 page)

It's been just over a month now since I began to visit my new local patch. Yet already I am beginning to understand the rhythms and patterns of its birdlife. Take the locals. On regular visits, you don't just get to know familiar species, but the individuals themselves. Ever-present birds include a family party of eight Mute Swans, which have a nasty habit of harassing passers-by for food. Other regulars include a single Grey Heron, usually standing on one of the small artificial islands in the centre of the lake.

Then there are the Ruddy Duck chicks, the fourth brood here this year. These hatched around mid-August, and a couple of weeks later had dwindled in number from seven to just four. The unfortunate trio could perhaps have been taken by pike, but a more exotic culprit may have been responsible.

One sunny day last month, I glanced down at the sun-bleached
branches of a fallen tree, poking out of the algae-covered water. There, sunning themselves like a platoon of beached submarines, were three Red-eared Terrapins. A passing jogger told me that they arrived here at the height of the Ninja Turtle craze of a few years ago. Presumably the owners, terrified by the terrapins' ability to eat almost anything within range of their powerful jaws, liberated them into this quiet backwater.

Whether or not Ruddy Duck chicks are on the menu, the terrapins appear to be holding their own. Some have grown to the size of dinner-plates, and with their chrome-yellow, green and black coloration, set off by the tiny red spot behind each ear, they make an interesting addition to the capital's fauna.

In the meantime, the local birdlife has undergone some changes, as summer passes inexorably into autumn. Duck numbers began to build up through August, with up to 40 Pochard joining the usual Tufted Ducks. Parties of Shovelers, their massive bill sifting the water surface for tiny morsels of food, have already come and gone, with the bulk passing through in the last fortnight of August. Three tiny Teal also frequented the shallows at the southern end for a day or two at that time.

Casual visitors are few and far between on the patch, perhaps because its enclosure by trees prevents migrants and other passers-by from dropping in. Nevertheless, a visiting Sparrowhawk was mobbed by a local crow, while one evening a Common Sandpiper fed along the exposed bank.

In the bird calendar, autumn is already well under way, and I don't expect to see the local Reed Warblers again until next spring. My last sighting was on the final day of August, and these tiny skulkers are now on their way to their wintering grounds south of the Sahara. Meanwhile, there are the first signs of the season to come. Tit flocks are beginning to build up, with the occasional Long-tailed Tit joining the more familiar species as they pass through the foliage, chattering and scolding as they go.

Yet even by mid-September, summer isn't quite over. As the chill winds of autumn gather strength, a pair of Great Crested Grebes has chosen to raise a final brood of chicks. The adults are currently sitting on a nest built on the edge of a reedbed. But will they win their race against time and raise their young, before winter takes its grip on the patch?

I recently took an early-morning stroll around my local patch. It was a cool, cloudy day, with a fresh north-easterly wind – not the ideal conditions for raising young birds. Yet despite the autumnal weather and the late date, the resident pair of Great Crested Grebes had just managed to hatch three chicks.

With their striped plumage and ungainly shape, grebe chicks are in sharp contrast to their elegant parents. They spend a lot of time out of the water – not along the banks of the reservoir, but on their parents' backs. The adult bird glides along the surface of the water like a square-rigger in full sail, accompanied by three tiny heads poking out from its ruffled plumage. Meanwhile, its partner dives constantly for the tiny silver-coloured fish which appear to be the chicks' staple diet.

During the course of the month, the grebe chicks have grown rapidly, more than doubling in size and weight. After a fortnight or so I was surprised to notice a fourth, slightly smaller chick. I can only presume that this bird must have been hidden among its parents' feathers all along. The good news is that despite the very late date, all four chicks have so far survived both the colder weather and the danger from predators.

I have a soft spot for Great Crested Grebes, as I used to watch them
when I was a child, on the disused gravel-pits along the River Thames at Shepperton. I can still remember the excitement of climbing along a branch over the water with my friend Ian Hyde, to find my first grebe's nest. It contained three elongated, pale eggs, stained olive-green by the waterweed used to cover them by the parent birds. Despite a youthful desire to collect anything and everything, I'm pleased to report that we left the eggs untouched.

A quarter of a century later, I can now watch nesting Great Crested Grebes with my two young sons, David and James. The patch is an ideal place to do this, being a kind of natural adventure playground, complete with trees for climbing, stones for throwing, and sticks to beat down stinging nettles. Of course, I have to contend with the problems faced by every modern parent: the children's inability to walk more than 200 yards without complaining; their tendency to fall off trees; and their constant need to express excitement at full volume. Nevertheless, on an hour's walk last Sunday, we did manage to see 30 different species of bird. We were helped by the calm, sunny weather, which brought back memories of the long-departed summer and encouraged constant activity among the birds.

The summer visitors are long gone now, of course, but their place has been taken by a gradual inflow of birds planning to spend the winter in the area. A small flock of gulls, mostly Black-headed but with the odd Common and Lesser Black-backed, has joined the ducks at feeding-time. Meanwhile, Wrens, Robins and Blue Tits hunt for insects along the lakeside bushes and trees.

The highlight of our walk was a close-up view of a female Sparrowhawk, which flew low over our heads and off towards nearby gardens, in search of birdtables attracting its songbird prey. David and James were more interested in the possibility of paddling at the water's edge, and that's perhaps how it should be.

After all, enthusiasm for the natural world can only develop through experience, gained first hand somewhere like this. Our little patch of wilderness in the midst of suburbia is just one of thousands
of places in Britain where children and adults can enjoy the sights and sounds of wild nature. Long may it remain.

My fears back in September for the newly hatched grebe chicks were unfounded: at least three have survived, and are now moulting out of their candy-striped juvenile costume and into the brown-and-white feathers of their first-winter. Meanwhile, the adults are stubbornly refusing to begin to moult out of breeding plumage, and are indulging in behaviour more typical of early spring than late autumn. One morning I caught a glimpse of the adult grebes ‘standing up' in the water, face to face, doing their famous ‘penguin dance' courtship display. If the weather holds out, who knows, we may even see them attempt to raise another brood over Christmas.

Apart from the grebes' unseasonable behaviour, it's been a fairly quiet month on the patch. Even so, numbers of winter visitors, such as the Cormorant flock, are building up. When I was growing up in the 1960s, Cormorants were just beginning to change their status from mainly coastal birds to ones that winter in good numbers inland. Helped by the proliferation of gravel-pits and reservoirs, they soon became a familiar sight around the London suburbs.

Even so, one day last month I was surprised to count 49 Cormorants resting on the artificial rafts provided for nesting ducks. More than two thirds were in the oily, greenish-black adult plumage; the rest a mixture of dirty cream and brown, indicating their juvenile status. At low tide on the nearby river, they hop over here to the reservoir, where they perch with open wings, hanging them out to dry like a gaggle of washerwomen.

I'm able to see them more easily now that the leaves have finally
fallen from the dense thicket of trees and shrubs which encircles the reservoir. The coming of winter also makes it much easier to see the smaller wintering species, such as Long-tailed Tits, Chiffchaffs and Goldcrests. Even so, I usually hear these birds before I see them, as they call incessantly in order to communicate with the rest of their flock.

The lack of foliage also helped me to find a new bird for the patch this month. One of the tall trees alongside the River Thames has a hole in its trunk. Blocking the hole was what at first sight looked like a pile of brown, autumn leaves, but on closer inspection revealed itself to be more animate – though only slightly. It was a Tawny Owl, roosting during the daylight hours in its south-facing niche, which on fine days enables it to bask in the warmth of the winter sun.

Unlike most other species of birds, which flee the worst of harsh winter weather, the owl prefers to adopt a wait-and-see strategy. Instead of moving on at the first sight of ice and snow, it stays put on its familiar breeding territory, adapting its diet to more catholic fare, even including earthworms. In doing so, it takes advantage of local knowledge and expends less energy, often enabling Tawny Owls to survive cold spells better than their wandering relatives.

Perhaps birdwatchers could learn a lesson from the Tawny Owl. Spending the winter covering one small area thoroughly is likely to be more rewarding than chasing up and down the country after rare visitors, and it's a lot less hassle.