Monday
22nd
February light to fresh W Sunny 9C
The
bicycle is all shiny, serviced and ready as I collect it. New chain and gear system, new brakes and cables, new back wheel with
a new Marathon Schwalbe Plus tyre and a new cartridge; the bike looks
fabulous and the ride is perfect after Stephen and Stephen, Dad and
Son, are paid.
Goodbye
to cousin, Rosemary and Paschal and a simple, reasonably quick ride
to Virginia Water around fourteen miles north west.
Entering
the park via the eastern entrance, I cycle path a large, new cafe and
find the path around the lake has been improved since my last visit
ten years or so ago. I search the cascade in the the south east
corner but don;t find any of the brilliantly attractive ducks that
Virginia Water is well known for. I head for the tall totem pole and
where a small pool is cut off from the main lake, people are feeding
a number of common duck in amongst which are four male Mandarin
with a lone female.
Two
ring-necked
parakeets
fly over and land reasonable nearby and so in the space of just a few
minutes, today's target birds are added to the list bringing it to
169.
Now this number of different birds had not been seen until the end of
March last year so my progress is superb. Three red kites fly over,
two of them in a sort of close together display flight. London is so
lucky that the Chiltern reintroduced birds have multiplied and spread
to such an extent that London skies frequently contain these
magnificent birds. I just hope that they continue to increase their
numbers so that more people can enjoy their elegant spectacle.
Through
Staines and north to the west of Heathrow I reach a public house just
outside West Drayton that two of my best friends will remember well;
the Paddington Packet Boat. I
want to stay here for the night because back in 1985 it was a
directional landmark for a teacher with three young students who were
searching for a special bird, a ferruginous duck.
I
was that teacher and the students, Alex the Bear Barter, Jason John
Oliver and Richard Southall were out on a bird watching trip. For the
three Wolverhampton boys it was their first experience of rarity
searching, twitching as it is called. That day so long ago had
already been successful with a famous Siberian bird, an olive-backed
pipit, having been seen in the back garden of a Bracknell garden.
This bird had caused queues of birders to stand outside Huckleberry
Close waiting their turn to go into the lounge of the bird's finders
to watch it in comfort.
When
we arrived early in the morning, after driving through the night
despite my wife's dire warning of impending doom that she
psychic-like predicted, there was a note on the door asking that
birders gave the occupants a rest and went instead around the the
nearby Primary school's playing field where the bird could be seen.
We did, we saw and happy we left to go get the next bird on the lads'
want list, smew at Kingsbury.
Back
in the days before pagers and SatNavs things weren't quite so easy
over getting accurate gen (information). Our happy troup were buzzing
with excitement as we went through some large gates to get to the
perimeter road that went around the large Wrasbury reservoir. Some
workers busy painting those gates even waved us through and wished us
luck. Those workers left the same gates locked when we returned an
hour or so later!
Now
trapped inside the reservoir we drove around the reservoir. We hadn't
found any smew and we were now stuck inside the reservoir grounds
with apparently no way out. No mobile phones to get help, we found a
gate that we thought we could lift off the hinges and so escape. We
heaved, we laughed, we couldn't lift it. Whilst we tried a police car
arrived and the officers heard of why we were inside and why we were
trying to get out. They had had a report from a member of the public
that some lads were trying to steal the gates. “We'll send someone
to let you out,” the police officers laughed.
Two
hours later an old man on an old squeaky bicycle arrived with a key.
Still
upbeat despite dipping on the smew, we went the short distance to the
Paddington Packet Boat. The large gravel pits was supposed to be the
home for a male 'fudge' duck but we couldn;t find it. We searched and
did find an area of bomb crater like pits where some locals had been
digging out old Victorian bottles. Two dips and a Siberian birds, we
drove home to the Midlands.
It
later turned out that we were at the wrong place at Wrasbury. The
smew were on another pool near to the reservoir. As for the
ferruginous duck, that had been hiding under a tree almost next to
the car and we had missed it.
As
for the lads; one, Jason is still a very keen birder who takes his
young son, Jack birding most weekends.
Richard is occasionally seen birding
but loves dragonflies more than birds.
Richard with a yellow shirt me.
Sadly the Bear died too young.
An un-diagnosed heart condition caused a heart attack and a great
close friend had gone.
Alex the Bear and Richard
A wonderful thing is that his brother has taken up Alex's binoculars and is now a very keen birder.
Nowadays the group of ex-students who bird is much larger; indeed we have our own facebook group page, The Birding Clams.
No
room at the Inn, I backtracked to West Drayton where a hotel had a
bed. The daylight faded as large flocks of ring-necked parakeets flew
into an adjacent park to roost, hundreds of them.
So
the year list is now 169, nineteen ahead of this time last year.
27.15
Miles 786 elevation up 920 elevation down
