Waterlink Way winter dawn chorus walk

Four of us met Chris McGaw at Sainsbury's, Bell Green, today for a winter dawn chorus walk of Waterlink Way. We started at 6:30am feeling surprisingly warmer than we did at 5am last May. On the other hand it was misty and not yet light enough for the binoculars.

Some of the Fieldfare

There were two highlights of the day, the first was the flock of Fieldfare in a tree beside the River Pool approx. 150m north of the Winsford Road/Broadmead footbridge, the second was a pair of Kingfisher in a shrub on the west bank of the river approx. 150m further north.

 

I managed to snatch a couple of photos, but they're poor quality because they were taken with my compact camera with the lens at full zoom, plus digital zoom, plus another order of magnitude enhancement with Photoshop.

Pair of Kingfisher

I took a better photo of a Kingfisher from the Winsford Road/Broadmead footbridge on 24th January.  That photo can be seen here  
We reached the new bridge into Lewisham Hospital around 8:30 by which time the temperature seemed to have dropped a good 5degC, so we stopped there for a very welcome hot drink.




Birds we heard (but I didn’t see):

• Chaffinch
• Collard Dove *
• Dunnock
• Goldcrest
• Great Spotted (assumed) Woodpecker
• Greenfinch
• Song Thrush *
• Starling
• Stock Dove *
• Wren

Birds I saw and heard

• Blackbird (1)
• Blue Tit (1)
• Carrion Crow (4)
• Fieldfare * (circa 80)
• House Sparrow (9)
• Long-tailed Tit (2)
• Magpie (3)
• Mallard * (7)
• Moorhen * (3)
• Ring-necked Parakeet (2)
• Robin (1)
• Woodpigeon (2)

Birds I saw (but didn’t hear)

• Black-headed Gull (circa 40)
• Common Gull (1)
• Feral Pigeon (14)
• Kingfisher * (2)
• Mistle Thrush (1)

     * Birds never seen (by me) in Hilly Fields