21 MARCH 2026 – SOUTHERN COUNTRY PARK and SURROUNDS

This was to be a walk to Southern Country Park, and the fields around Matham’s Pit to try for Skylarks and Blackcaps, following my walk on 18 March along the River Stort, when I was thwarted in my efforts to take my intended route - from Spellbrook to St. James’ Church and its  surrounding farmland - due to an extremely muddy (and therefore possibly dangerous) towpath from Thorley Wash to Spellbrook.

I started out from home at 0940 hrs heading straight for Southern Country Park (SCP), arriving there around 10.15 hrs. There is a small woodland along Thorley Lane near to the northern entrance to SCP, where I had reasonable views of a Nuthatch, and where I was able to get a few  photos using the 100-400mm telephoto lens on my camera (though, even then they required enlarging in processing for the final result), as well as photos of early Bluebells; Wood Violets; White Deadnettle, and a couple of Bee Flys (which are fascinating insects).

Into the park, the first birdsong came from a Cetti’s Warbler and a distant Chiffchaff, though I saw neither. Near to the boardwalk along the northern perimeter of the lake, I heard the screaming call of a Water Rail, but with no chance of an actual sighting, I did at least know that the species was still present here, which was encouraging. There was little activity on the lake other than the usual suspects (Mallards; Moorhens and a Coot), but a lovely display of Daffodils on the east bank. I walked around woodland areas west of the lake, then made my way down to the Old Pond, and the Ancient Wood near the Spring Meadow without encountering anything out of the ordinary except another singing Chiffchaff. I did catch a snatch of a Blackcap song, but the Saturday traffic along St. James Way drowned it out, and although I crossed over the footbridge to the other side of the road, I was unable to locate the songster.

On the way to open farmland (which I call Matham’s fields that surrounds Matham’s Pit fishing lake, I saw a pair of Long-tailed Tits with nesting material, eventually locating the nest, which was almost complete. I stayed for half an hour or so, watching the birds bringing more material to the nest, located in brambles across a small ditch, taking a series of photographs at quite close range. These delightful birds were quite confiding, so I was able to remain in situ without causing undue stress.

A short way along the track I gained a view of a Eurasian Treecreeper, which stayed in view for a few minutes, allowing me to take several photos via the telephoto. It was my first treecreeper of the year, a bird that I don’t see any way on any kind of regular basis hereabouts.

Nearing Matham’s Pit I was struck by the almost complete lack of bird calls, other than a mewing Buzzard, and the twittering of Blue Tits and Robins’ song; but what was deafening was the silence from a complete absence of Skylarks. In previous years Skylarks were already on territory and singing readily by the end of February on these fields, but today not a single Skylark song could be heard, and this continued all the way up to St. James Church. The entirety of fields had been planted with (I think) Brussel Sprouts that were well established, but that hasn’t seemingly prevented Skylarks from seeking territories before. I can only hope that maybe the birds were already here, but were not yet vociferous, but it was worrying nonetheless and was a disappointing end to what had been an interesting morning’s walk. I was home by 13.30 hrs. 

BEE FLY 

EURASIAN NUTHATCH

GREATER PERIWINKLE

EURASIAN JACKDAW

DAFFODILS

DRAKE MALLARD

LONG-TAILED TIT

LONG-TAILED TIT

LONG-TAILED TIT WITH NEST MATERIAL

NEST OF LONG-TAILED TIT

STARLING

EURASIAN TREECREEPER

18 MARCH 2026 – A WALK ALONG THE RIVER STORT

It was rather an ambitious plan - to walk along the Stort from my home in Bishop’s Stortford, down to Twyford Lock (taking in Rushy Mead Reserve), then down along the towpath to Thorley Wash Reserve, then continue to Spellbrook, then back along the highway and take the public footpath up to St. James’ Church and back home via Southern Country Park. I took a packed lunch and water rations, as I knew I’d be out most of the day if things worked out.

It was a beautiful, cloudless, warm and sunny morning, with temperatures set to rise to around 18 degrees C or more. My aim in terms of wildlife was to attempt to see Chiffchaff; Blackcap; Grey Wagtail along the Stort and add Skylark around the farmland at the rear of St. James’ Church. But my plans were scuppered when I reached Thorley Wash because the towpath from there down to Spellbrook was still extremely muddy and almost impassible in places, with the alternative route across the railway line on the northern periphery of Thorley Wash Reserve not available to me because I couldn’t climb the style (I didn’t want to risk putting undue weight on my knees, which had been a tad troublesome of late).

Things started so well, with a sighting of a Great Spotted Woodpecker and a singing male Chiffchaff at Southmill Lock, and two singing male Chiffs at Rushy Mead Reserve (though I failed to see any of them), and a sighting of a Green Woodpecker (previously only heard) there too. Further along the Stort at Twyford Lock, I was delighted to see a pair of Grey Wagtails (which usually breed here, but I believe failed to do so last year).

Along the towpath towards Thorley Wash, two Great Cormorants were perched high on a Larch, then further along, three Eurasian Buzzards and a Red Kite, and a single Stock Dove. There were at least six singing male Chiffchaffs along that part of the towpath, although I only managed to see just two of them;  but disappointingly, there was no sign or song of a Blackcap.  I had a quick look on the Reserve, but no sightings of any Water Voles at the usual place. I’d lost count of the numbers of Brimstone Butterflies (of both sexes) I’d seen along the towpath; with several, Peacock Butterflies, and many bumblebees, and a bee-fly too; but little else of note.

Due to time constraints, I decided it probably wasn’t worth taking the circular walk around the northern sector. So I turned back with the intention of walking down along the towpath to Spellbrook, which was when I discovered that the route was still extremely muddy - a couple of walkers I met stated it was almost impassible in places - and therefore really quite dangerous for me to attempt, given that I’m still using a Nordic pole as support whilst waiting for hip replacement surgery. It was just after midday at that stage, so as I wasn’t getting to St. James’ Church and possible Skylarks by either of my intended routes, I decided to call it a day and return home (I hadn’t even thought about eating my lunch, which I did when I got back to Twyford Lock!).

I hadn’t gone far when I noticed a pair of Mute Swans on the river, and they appeared to be behaving like they were about to begin the mating ritual, as they were rubbing heads together in an intimate manner. I’d seen this sort of behaviour before, so I knew what to expect, so I refrained from proceeding further for fear of disturbing them. I even asked a walker to hold back awhile. I  attempted to demonstrate to him (with hand gestures) how the birds would rise up out of the water and link necks in a sort of heart-shape, before the pen (the female) drops to the water level, with the cob (the male) on her back, then - with the female submerged - the male mates and takes her by the neck as if attempting to drown her. But suddenly as predicted, the birds were in full mating ritual, and I very nearly missed photographing any of it, managing only the one shot. But it was an amazing spectacle, balletic and intimate, and even quite moving too. It was the first time I’d seen this behaviour with Swans at Thorley Wash, so I felt quite privileged.

On the way back I saw a single Rose-ringed Parakeet, which now seem to be an annual occurrence at Thorley Wash.

There were lots of wildflowers along the towpath, such as Greater Celandine, Dog Violets, early Cowslips, and even a few flowering Bluebells. So, all in all an interesting walk - with the mating of Mute Swans being the undoubted highlight. 

SPRING ALONG THE STORT

THE 'FORTRESS' - A FALLEN BEECH, COVERED IN MOSS

EURASIAN BUZZARD

EURASIAN BUZZARD - HONEY BUZZARD LOOK-ALIKE?

RED KITE

MOORHEN - TWYFORD LOCK

MOORHEN - THORLEY WASH

GREY WAGTAIL - TWYFORD LOCK

MUTE SWANS IN MATING RITUAL - THORLEY WASH

MUTE SWAN - POST MATING PREEN-UP

DOG VIOLETS - RUSHY MEAD

GREATER CELANDINE - NEAR TWYFORD LOCK

COWSLIP -  NEAR THORLEY WASH

FROG FEST – FEB/MARCH 2026

In my wildlife pond in March 2025, I recorded at least 60 individual frogs (most of them ‘paired up’) in an ‘orgy’ of activity the likes of which I’d never observed previously. The noise from the male frogs was quite loud at times, even in the daytime, which was also something I’d never experienced before. There  was a huge volume of frog spawn, but literally all of it disappeared virtually overnight on the 28^th March, and I’ve never been able to establish a viable explanation. Unusually, several frogs remained resident in the pond throughout the summer months, with the last three still in situ when it was completely rebuilt and relined early in November 2025.

Whilst 2026 hasn’t quite reached those heights, the first frogs appeared at least a month earlier than the previous year, culminating in a total of around 21 individuals, and a mass of spawn, even exceeding the exceptional volume of 2025, although hopefully this time, the spawn will hatch into froglets.

A MASS OF FROG SPAWN

FROGS 'HIDING' AMONGST THE NEW STONES

SEXTET

AMONGST THE SPAWN

26 FEBRUARY 2026 – WAXHAM, NORFOLK

John’s Landrover Discovery was away at the dealers awaiting spare parts, so it was a Volvo SUV courtesy car that was providing the transport on this trip, though Mike was unable to join us on this occasion.

We’d decided that a trip to the Norfolk Brecks would be the most suitable venue, but it wasn’t until we were about an hour or so into the journey that John brought up the prospect of revising our course in favour of trying for a Glaucous Gull and an Iceland Gull, which had been seen at Waxham on the east Norfolk coast, the previous day. It was some distance away from the Brecks, but since neither of us hadn’t seen either species for quite some time (19 years for the Glaucous Gull and 21 years for the Iceland in my case) it wasn’t really such a hard decision to make, although of course, neither gull was guaranteed.

Finding an actual road to Waxham beach was quite an achievement, but eventually we took a narrow road near Waxham Barn, which led to a sandy lane where several cars were parked, and where a couple had just returned from taking their terrier for a walk along the beach, and provided us with the relevant info of how to get where we wanted to go. A sandy track through some trees, eventually led to the beach and a substantial sea wall, but there was no sign of any birdwatchers, so we just made our way right along the sea wall, following the coastline on a long line of enormous rock groynes, where John picked up what appeared to be birdwatchers in the far, far distance, where gulls could be seen whirling around the beach. It looked promising, so we continued below the sea wall, but it took an absolute age to reach the birdwatchers - indeed it wouldn’t have surprised me to learn that we’d walked a couple of miles; it certainly felt like it.

There weren’t many birds around, mostly Black-headed; Herring; Lesser and Great Black-backed gulls; with a lone Great Crested Grebe out on the sea; but arguably more interesting were the huge herds of Grey Seals - several hundred strong at least, virtually the entire length of the beach, lined up above the tide line amongst the groynes - which we were certainly not expecting.

The seals comprised both bulls (some of which were huge beasts) and cows, although the smaller ones could well have been pups; but the varying colours of their mottled coats in all hues of black, brown, grey, ginger, and off-white was surprising. And something else came to the fore too……………the stench from the seals was simply acrid in the extreme, though luckily the breeze took the effect away to some extent. Most of the seals happily accepted close encounters with us humans, but some were not so, and slowly galumphed away to the safety of the sea as we passed.

By the time I reached John - who was a considerable distance in front of me most of the time (as I was struggling with an ailing hip and my Nordic stick as support) he gave me the news that neither Gull had been seen (the other birdwatchers had already been at the site most of the morning with nothing positive to report). We waited around for a while before we turned back, but at least we’d learned that one of our intended venues - Lynford Arboretum in the Brecks - was apparently extremely quiet bird wise, so that made us feel a tad happier at choosing to come to Waxham instead; but not by much!

In the meantime, whilst scoping the sea for birdlife, John found a flotilla of twenty or so Common Scoters, though they were very distant and were continually disappearing under the swell, though hardly compensation for missing our gulls I admit.

On the way back - the prospect of another torrid two-mile walk back along the sea wall wasn’t in the least inspiring - I was looking out to sea, when I heard a shout from John, and turned around to see him pointing desperately to the skies, so I knew in my heart that he’d seen the Glaucous Gull, but of course, by the time I reached him, the bird had disappeared! John tried to re-locate the gull, taking a steep flight of steps to the top of the sea wall, to scan the surrounding fields, with nothing positive to report other than seeing five Red Kites. But he remained somehow convinced that the gull would likely return to the original site on the beach, and was eventually proved correct, when by chance he scoped the bird perched on a signpost off in the distance. Luckily for me it stayed in situ long enough for me to get a good enough view through John’s scope, before suddenly it wasn’t there anymore. Elation was the order of the day for a while - though more so for John who had the best view initially as it flew in from the sea over his head!

We decided in vain to try looking for Common Cranes on fields around Hickling Broad, although we did see a couple of Cattle Egrets and a lone Little Egret in fields aligning the winding road.  We also tried for Purple Sandpipers on the rocks at Sea Palling further north along the coast, without success due to the high tide.

It was getting late in the afternoon by then, so we decided to head for home, taking in a welcome cappuccino on the way. It hadn’t been an especially remarkable days birding, but there was no argument that getting at least one of our target species was some achievement given the circumstances. But I confess, the Grey Seals made the day for me, despite their odour!

  

8 JANUARY 2026 – ABBERTON RESERVOIR

This was our first birding trip of the new year and right from the start it seemed from forecasts that we were going to be fighting the weather - the first part of the day being still extremely cold, with light winds, drizzle and fog, followed by heavy rain and strong southwesterlies from about 14.00 hrs. possibly turning wintery by late afternoon - early evening; all courtesy of storm Goretti. So, we set off from mine shortly after 08.00 hrs expecting that we’d likely back home by mid-afternoon.

We had no problems on the road with traffic, but a detour around Coggeshall, meant that we were forced to approach Abberton Reservoir from the Layer de la Haye concourse as opposed to the Layer Breton concourse which was our intended route.

Straight away it was absolutely apparent that the reservoir south of the road here was almost entirely frozen, with hardly a bird on it, except for a couple of Great Egrets and a Carrion Crow, whereas the northern sector was less frozen with isolated groups of Goosander; Wigeon; Tufted Duck; Teal, with the odd Great Crested Grebe; Goldeneye and Pochard. There were a couple of Redshank; Black-tailed Godwits, and Oystercatchers  on the eastern bank, but not much else of note. John picked at least three Red Crested Pochard in his scope and a couple of distant Bewick’s Swans. But we missed out on Black-necked and Slavonian Grebes which had been observed in recent days.

On the way round to the Layer Breton concourse, we looked in at one of the hides at Billet’s Farm, but views of birds were restricted by fog that seemed to be becoming denser by the minute. Regrettably, we just missed a Long-tailed Duck, but there wasn’t a great deal on show here, although once again John came to the rescue with a singleton Mediterranean Gull and a drake Pintail. A female ring-necked Pheasant; a flock of about ten Dunlin, and a flyover Golden Plover helped boost our year lists too.

At Layer Breton virtually the first bird we latched onto was a stunning drake Smew, a species I hadn’t seen here for several years, and despite swimming and diving over a wide area, it kept a reasonable distance from the birders watching it.  There was a lot of activity here as it wasn’t as extensively frozen as from the southern section at Layer de la Haye, but there were many Mute Swans and Egyptian Geese interspersed with Grey Lags; Tufted Duck; Wigeon and other duck species, including a Red-head Smew (a female) which I found near to the left bank, initially ‘hiding’ beneath a fallen tree and which seemed very reluctant to come out at times. A Eurasian Buzzard was seen flying over the frozen waters and was something of a surprise. The southern part of the lake was almost entirely frozen with hardly a bird on it save for Black-headed and Herring Gulls, and I think at least one Mew (Common) Gull. But although there were a few Great Egrets, we saw absolutely no Little Egrets or Cattle Egrets (all of which had bred here); obviously the conditions were too harsh for them here, and they’d moved out to outlying fields; streams and rivulets.

After speaking to a fellow birdwatcher, John discovered that there was a ‘permissible footpath’ nearby where Tundra Bean Geese and White-fronted Geese had been observed of late, so we made a beeline for that, almost immediately connecting with a large flock of 80 or so Egyptian Geese on open fields, and behind them the three Bean Geese. Quite a bit further along, we connected with a large flock of wary Grey Lags with some Canada Geese, interspersed with the Whitefronts - where John scoped at least 14, with a good 100 or so Canada Geese further away. A pair of Stock Doves flew over, and good numbers of Redwings were seen flying out of Hawthorn bushes that lined the path.

We returned to Layer de la Haye concourse - where Mike and I spotted what we initially thought was a second drake Smew swimming around ice-free areas of water - although we soon discovered that the drake at Layer Breton was seen to fly north, so was almost certainly the same bird.

Later, we visited the Visitor Centre and the bird hides there, without seeing much more of interest due to the lack of birds on frozen waters, although two more Bewick’s Swans; a Sparrowhawk; an obliging Green Woodpecker on a wooden fence, and a few small passerines such as Titmice and Starlings were seen. By this time the whole reserve was shrouded in a truly dense fog, which virtually obliterated views of the birds and everything else.

After a welcome Cappuccino we left for home arriving at mine at 15.00 hrs in extremely dense fog, fortunately without experiencing the forecast heavy rain and high winds ………….which came after darkness fell.

A ritual that most of us ‘birders’ partake in is keeping a list of birds seen in any one year. Some are arguably a tad over-zealous in this regard, but I’d like to think that we three don’t take it that seriously. That said getting our lists off to a good start for the year is something probably most birders who keep lists adhere to well, almost religiously - and we are no different.

We achieved up to 32 ‘year ticks’ between us which we all felt was quite an exceptional tally, given the adverse weather conditions - indeed, none of us could recall seeing so much frozen water at Abberton previously, and I’m certain that helped us to some degree.

DRAKE GOLDENEYE

GOOSANDER (F)

GOOSANDER (M)

GREEN WOODPECKER

KERRY (?) SHEEP (near the 'permissible footpath)

SMEW (DRAKE)

SMEW (DRAKE)

 SMEW (DRAKE)

SMEW (FEMALE or REDHEAD)

EURASIAN WIGEON