A stroll along the River Thames

This last Wednesday I had to drive Chris up to London. He had some research to do at the V&A (Victoria and Albert Museum) for his work. I drove to Richmond, a suburb in the west of London. I would spend the day here while Chris went on the tube into central London. There is a large car park at Richmond just a short walk away from the River Thames.

I skirted the edge of Richmond Park to get to the Thames (I know this is a stomping ground for Frank The Early Birder, so maybe he could recommend something different for me to do when I next have to drive Chris up this way???). There was a lovely metal railing bridge across a parallel watercourse to get to the Thames river path.
The parallel watercourse probably has some use, but I don't know what it is.
When I got over to the pathway I had a decision to make....which way to go and this sign gave me a helping hand. I would aim for Richmond Lock.

A view approaching Richmond bridge and lock.

It's a pretty bridge and I got a bit carried away with taking photos! (-:

A London Port Authority boat was using the Lock while I was there.

A view up river from the Lock.

A nice pedestrian walkway across the bridge.

A view down river (I think, maybe I got up and down wrong! Frank'll tell me! (-: )

The bridge lights were impressive.

Enough of bridges, here are some of the birds that I saw on my stroll along the river. Nothing really rare, but fun to try and photograph all the same. This Great Crested Grebe was playing hide and seek with me. I sustained several stings from nettles to get this shot and still I managed to get him behind some foliage (the reddish blurring)!

I was surprised to come across a few Egyptian Geese here, though maybe Frank will tell me they're common along the River Thames?

My 70-300ml lens was straining to get this Grey Heron posing on the other side of the River.

Here's a shot of him with a rower passing by.

Another Grey Heron, this time on my side of the River, but still not close enough for much detail.

These Black-headed Gulls are just in the process of losing their brown heads, changing into winter plumage.

Moorhens are generally shy birds, but this one was strutting boldly on the path ahead of me (mind you, it soon scuttled over into the undergrowth as I got nearer).

One on the water making a quick getaway!

A view of some of the buildings and boats across the River from me.

Some rowers out for a practice. They created quite a lot of disturbance as they sliced their way through the water....

.....as can be seen in the photo below of many Black-headed Gulls taking flight.

It wasn't all Birds, Bridges and Boats though. The path along this stretch of the River Thames was nice a leafy.

There's something irresistible to me about sunlight through foliage. It always lifts my spirits!

Here is the fruit of the tree above. The Horse Chestnut. It will be quite a few weeks before the lovely rich brown conkers start to appear from these prickly casings.

I used to play conkers as a kid.

This is a pretty looking flower, but it's an alien and a bit of a menace. It's called Himalayan Balsam and spreads rapidly, specially along water courses.

After a while I made my way back to the start and walked a little bit along the other way. This bridge is the one that I drove over to get to Richmond. You can see some interesting riverside homes on the far bank.

The Purple Loosestrife along here made for a lovely river scene.

Walking back under the bridge to make my way back to the car, I noticed the water reflecting on the bridge roof.

Something I noticed particularly on my walk was the constant noise of the planes low overhead making their final approach to land at Heathrow airport. It certainly made me glad that I'm not under a flight path back in my home town in Somerset!

Haweswater in the Lake District

Haweswater is the most easterly and remote of the Lakes in Cumbria. It was controversially dammed in 1929 to help provide water for the conurbations around the Manchester area. In the process, two villages were flooded and their inhabitants moved elsewhere. When the water is low, remnants of the villages can still be seen. Haweswater is an RSPB Reserve and if you click on the link, you can find out a bit more about this beautiful area.

We had come here to look for particular species of bird. Namely the Ring Ouzel (similar to Blackbird but with a white crescent on the breast) and also England's last remaining Golden Eagle. There is one lone male Golden Eagle which still displays here in the hope of attracting a mate (the female died many years ago). You can see in this photo below that the sun is TRYING to peek out through the overcast sky. Jane is optimistically wearing her t-shirt!

I loved the meteor shower effect that these distant Goosanders made on the water as they made their serene way across the lake.

Here's the whole shot to give perspective.

Another effect on the still waters here was the wonderful reflection of some flying Cormorants. There were five birds in this shot.

All the public rights of way signposts seem to be well kept up here. This one shows three different types of Rights of Way. A Byway is open to walkers, horse riders, cyclists and motor vehicles but isn't maintained to a roadworthy standard. A Bridleway is open to walkers, horse riders and pedal cyclists and a Footpath is open to just walkers. I think I have that right! (-:

On the way up the footpath to look for our target birds, I saw this lone lamb with a fantastic outlook over the lake.

Below are some scenic views along our walk to the Golden Eagle watchpoint.

In the photo below is the valley where the watchpoint is located (close to those small trees in the distance in the upper middle of the shot). From there we set our scopes up to view the end of the valley where the lone Golden Eagle was perched. We had good but distant scope views of this charismatic birds. It was a shame not to see him flying, but it was a bonus to get any sort of view (my last sighting of Golden Eagle was way back in 2004!). The elusive Ring Ouzel managed to elude us on this occasion.

On the way back down to the car and lunch, I took more notice of my immediate surroundings. There are dry stone walls all over Britain, but the ones up here are quite distinctively dark and blocky with the local stone obviously being used.

This shepherds hut had seen better days!

Not so easy to build walls with more rounded stones!

Give me a wall with lichen on it and I can't ever resist! (-:

After a few hours walking and watching, we made it back to the car and found ourselves a wonderful spot for eating lunch. I can't think of many better places to eat!

Many thanks for Andy and Sue for being such great hosts. It was a fun trip!

A weekend in the Lake District

A couple of weekends ago my friend Jane and I drove up to The Lake District in Cumbria for a long weekend with birding friends. Cumbria is the county on the western side of England just below Scotland. It is England's most mountainous region with some of the deepest lakes. The link above will take you to some images of this beautiful area of England. Below is our friend's home where we stayed during our trip.

Under the eaves of his house, there were a couple of House Martin nests. These grotty photos of one of the nests with a young bird in were taken through a window.
Just about to receive some breakfast I think!

The lovely local River Kent allowed Jane to see Dipper for her year list.

Andy took us to one of his local birding spots, the RSPB reserve of Leighton Moss.

There had been sightings of an Osprey reported earlier in the day here, but despite looking for over an hour from the hide, we were out of luck. We did enjoy watching some Greenshank, Common Sandpiper and Green Sandpiper here though.

It was also lovely to watch the always graceful looking Great Crested Grebe from the hide.

The weather while we were up there was what one might expect in this predominantly wet region of the country. A lot of the time we had 'Scotch mist' to contend with so we did quite a lot of sightseeing from the car. Here we're waiting to cross Lake Windermere on the car ferry.

You can see the ferry on the far side of the Lake. The crossing takes less than 10 minutes.

A view of some of the yachts on Windermere. Motorboats are now banned from going more than 10mph on the Lake now I think.

We thought we'd have another stab at seeing Osprey, so we went to Bassenthwaite Lake (the northern most lake) where they are known to breed.

Alas, despite at least 2 hours of searching, we failed to see these charismatic birds again. It was a beautiful and atmospheric place to be though with the low clouds hugging the tops of the mountains. (-:

On the way back south at the end of the day, we drove through some stunning scenery past Ullswater. The overcast weather made for some atmospheric shots, but I'd also love to come back here in better weather conditions and with more time!

The next post will be about our time at Haweswater in the east of the Lake District.