Walthamstow Wetlands

My favourite birding spot in London, Walthamstow Wetlands are centered around ten reservoirs, built between 1853 and 1904 along the River Lea, as storage for the city’s water supply. Most of the site was opened to the public in 2017 and is a significant area for migrating and wintering birds in particular.

This morning I made my third visit, seeking a couple of rareties that have been reported over the weekend: a red-necked grebe and a Mediterranean gull. Spoiler: I dipped on both.

I arrived at the Coppermill gate at 9.40. It was around 2 degrees and sunny.

Heading in, I immediately saw a grey heron preening, Eurasian coots in the Coppermill stream and common wood-pigeons in the trees alongside it. There were Canada, greylag and Egyptian geese feeding on the banks of the East Warwick Reservoir, as is often the case. One of these had an interesting pigmentation issue that made me think I’d found the first greater white-fronted goose for Walthamstow in four years, but alas – another birder knocked that idea down. Black-headed gulls flew over the area, including at least one in nearly full breeding plumage.

I headed north up the path trying to find the common kingfisher that is a regular on the stream, but was unsuccesful for the moment. I did, however, find a European robin, Eurasian blue tits, a couple of European greenfinch and a small flock of long-tailed tits. Eurasian magpies regularly hopped down onto the bank then back into the trees as I approached.

One of the smaller islands in the East Warwick Reservoir had two preening mute swans on it, a few northern shovelers, and a common snipe – new for me in London, and something I never would have noticed if it hadn’t been pointed out to me by David B. On the water here there were also great black-backed gulls, European herring gulls, tufted ducks and Eurasian moorhens.

Up at the dragonfly pond there were two European stonechats that were showing very nicely. I don’t know if this is always the case, but in my limited experience with them I’ve found stonechats to behave a lot like petroicidae robins: they’re cautiously curious and will pick low, open perches around 10m away, watch you for a while, perhaps hawk or pick up food from the ground, and quickly reset the distance if you move closer. They don’t tend to frighten though, and if you don’t notice them or you’re stationary in a place they may well come closer.

Despite their name stonechats are not closely related to Australian chats; the former are Old World flycatchers, the latter are honeyeaters.

Also around the dragonfly pond were great tits, Eurasian wrens, common chaffinch, common starlings and a single coal tit. I tried for a while to get a wren photo, but was mostly unsucessful – that’s a big need for me as I enter my final week in the UK.

After a quick stop for a coffee, I crossed the road and visited the Lockwood Reservoir. This was where both the Mediterranean gull and the red-necked grebe had been reported. It was also an area I hadn’t visited on previous trips. With both the rareties absent, there were both little and great crested grebes, my first common gull of the day, more geese and tufteds and coots. Here I had a chat to a nice man who pointed out a goldeneye on the northern section of the pond, and who also recommended a few other sites around London to check out. I didn’t get his name, but thank-you nice man!

From here I turned back. Rose-ringed parakeets were calling, but I didn’t spot them. Back at the Coppermill Stream I found the resident common kingfisher, who was not cooperating with photographers. Shout out to Liam, a very patient snapper who had been following it for a few hours.

A Cetti’s warbler was foraging in the reed bed while we were waiting for the kingfisher – a species I have found to be remarkably unbothered by people so long as you’re still. This one came within a metre of me and continued feeding almost uninterrupted – only appearing in the open briefly when a few walkers flushed it out of its spot.

Right as I was leaving I managed to snag a lifer: a bird I first dismissed as a greenfinch turned out to be a common chiffchaff, hawking out of a deciduous tree near the southern gate.