Morden Hall Park - the Patch Delivers! 25th February 2018

Today I had another urban ranger session at Morden Hall from 9am in the paddock (when I refer to the paddock I mean the overflow car park,) this time with the company of a camera crew as they are making a film about the group. So we started off with a few games etc. and bits and pieces to start off the session. Then we moved on to getting rid of these big, overgrown clumps of grass on the banks of the wildflower meadow in preparation for the spring. By the end it looked much better. 

It was certainly interesting being filmed by cameras like that; having grown up watching  Deadly 60 - Steve Backshall was one of the key people that got me into wildlife - it was a good experience. Giving me more ideas about my future.

For an hour and a half everything was running smoothly, with a lot of work getting done. Just before we had a break at around 10:30am I had a quick look up towards the car park, and a small bird, looking rather blue in the fine weather, ran along the wall, hopped down onto the gravel path, onto a post and sat there. With binoculars nearby I grabbed them with one bird in my mind. And it was what I hoped it was - a (slightly early) female Black Redstart, looking stunning in the sunshine. I watched it through the binoculars and showed it to a few others around me, and then it flew across the paddock and over to the wall in the house on the entrance to the park. I've been a bit worried about submitting my sighting, as the the last submitted interesting bird - the April Peregrine (originally thought to be Merlin) caused havoc on the London Bird Club. Either way I did and hopefully it's accepted. What  a great start!

For the rest of the morning we continued working on the mounds, being filmed throughout with mini-interviews towards the end. It was thoroughly enjoyable talking to the group filming us, and to me it was another morning well spent.

Other highlights were 2 Green Woodpeckers, a couple of GSWs, a flyover Little Egret, 1 Sparrowhawk, 1 Kestrel, 2 Mistle Thrush and also a Meadow Pipit which came into the paddock at the very beginning to feed.

After cleaning up the tools used and having a final briefing by Richard our Lead Ranger, I made my way to the boardwalk to check out on the regulars. Another surprise was hearing the Cetti's Warbler singing from some scrubs by the river rather than the large amount of reedbed, even showing in the open for a grand time of 2 seconds. Only 1 Water Rail was heard today from the reedbeds area. After doing a few circuits I went towards the palace, and a Little Grebe was the only bird of note. 6 Goldcrest were calling along the route. Then while heading back the hotspot for watching what seems to be a pair of Kingfisher was strengthened as a male flew by and landed on one of the branches (Grid Reference: TQ260687) seems to be a favourite part. 

I then decided to try a different part of the park to see what could be seen. So I headed to the part of the rose garden which leads along towards the Ravensbury Park side (see map on side of page.) Either way it wasn't a bad way to end the day, as 4 Grey Wagtail, 90ish Black-headed Gull, 2 Little Grebe and 2 Teal (patch tick) were seen. Soon after I left the park, bringing an end to one of the most productive sessions at the patch in the last year. 

Although the Pentax has died again, I'm getting the Canon - which I've used for the last year - back again which is a stroke of luck. Now I can actually start taking some pictures again, rather than lots of writing which I apologise for!