Pennington, Thamesmead, & Richmond Park

We went again at Low tide to see whether the Kentish Plover was still about at mid-morning, hoping that it would be showing as well as it apparantly was yesterday around the same time. It always helps when the bird is actually present, and these little waders reknowned for not sticking around long, wasn't any anomoly. However on arrival 2 Spoonbills flew in over head, looking to land. They eventually landed on the Jetty Lagoon, where i managed some record shots of the birds.

Both the Spoonbills on the Jetty Lagoon, the ringed bird is the regular bird here, that was apparantly ringed in Holland last year © Ashley Howe

Also in the area, there was a Whinchat, another passerine which i should have seen already this year, but hadn't. A Whimbrel flew over, but other than this, there wasn't anything else in the small area we covered, before heading North. We decided to 'twitch' the White-winged Black Tern at Thamesmead, London. The Adult bird had disappeared once, and returned soon after, and was frequenting the outfall.

One of two Dunlin on the Jetty Lagoon, and coming fairly close, if it wasn't for the channel they probably would have been even better © Ashley Howe

It wasn't long before we arrived, and the bird was simply circling the wooden structure. If not abit distant, the bird was certainly showing well. Before it simply disappeared into thin air once again.

Time was pushing, and there was a late afternoon dash, (in poor light) to get to Richmond Park, thanks to Franko and a friend for information. It didn't take long to find our first Ring-necked Parakeets as they are so plentiful in this area. But poor light conditions and constantly looking up into the sky at them wasn't the best to photograph them.

A poor selection of shots of the Ring-necked Parakeets, you can see the light is pretty naff in all of them © Ashley Howe