Stewart & Myself visited Broadwater Lake & the River Colne just over the county border in Middlesex. Proved an interesting couple of hours at this nature reserve where nature seems to have been left alone to do it's own thing, fallen trees have just been left where they fell, there are no man made paths, plenty of decaying timber & strangely as it's on the edge of London, in two hours we only met the warden. All is tranquill, but that will soon be shattered as HS2 will speed through this SSSI on a 3.4KM long viaduct. So best enjoy it while we can, like many other places in this green & pleasant land.
The first small lake near the entrance held 5 pairs of Shoveller, 23 Tufted Ducks & 4 Great Crested Grebes, a Grey Wagtail just kept a safe distance between us & itself as it worked it's way along the puddles in the track.
Had a chat with the warden, turns out that he appeared regularly along with countryman Fred J Taylor on television back in the day. A wintering Chiffchaff flitted through the lower branches down by the river, as c20 Siskins fed in the tops of the Allders. a couple of pairs of Teal were also on the river, which is where we later saw a Kingfisher on our return back to the car. Noisy Ring-necked Parakeets could be heard, but rarely seen.
The large Lake had Cetti's Warblers calling from two seperate reed beds, 98 Tufted Ducks, 8 Wigeon, 11 Pochard, 2 Little Grebes, 2 Gadwall, Water Rail feeding on the shoreline of one of the islands, Egyptian Goose & 2 Little Egrets. 32 different species seen.
Don.
Images Copyright : Don Stone.
No comments:
Post a Comment