London Wetlands Centre

Back in the eighties one of my favourite birding spots was the the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT) centre at Slimbridge. The WWT centre at Barnes in west London is nowhere near the size of Slimbridge but it's an important wetland in the capital.

Greylag geese

There were reasonable numbers of duck, mostly tufted duck but no wild swans and the only geese I saw were greylag goose and canada goose. While sitting in the main hide overlooking a lake I heard the unmistakable song of a Cetti's warbler from the reeds outside. After a 5 minute wait it came into sight and I heard a further two birds during the morning. It's good to see that they are spreading their range from their previous stronghold at Radipole lake RSPB reserve in Weymouth.

Tufted duck

LWT Does not have the meadows and mud flats that Slimbridge has so there were few waders to be seen apart from a couple of northern lapwing and single common snipe and redshank. The trees surrounding the lakes held a few common passerines such as long-tailed tit and a brown rat was foraging beneath one of the feeding stations put out for the birds.

Gadwall

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1 Great crested grebe

10 Cormorant
2 Grey heron
6 Greylag goose
30 Canada goose
50 Mallard
10 Gadwall
30 Shoveler
25 Wigeon
30 Teal
1 Pochard
120 Tufted duck
20 Coot
100 Moorhen
2 Northern lapwing
1 Redshank
1 Common snipe
20 Black-headed gull
10 Lesser black-backed gull
15 Blue tit
3 Great tit
2 Chaffinch
1 Blackbird
10 Jackdaw
30 Carrion crow
30 Feral pigeon
5 Woodpigeon
30 Starling
3 Cetti's warbler
5 Magpie
1 Lomg-tailed tit
2 Robin