Cooling Marshes

 

August 8th

As you know one of my favourite places that has rarely disappointed over the years, I visited with Paul at dawn on the Saturday, only my 2nd visit this year.

Lots of Curlew in the Breach on a rising tide, I estimated around 180+ also a single Grey Plover seen along with 6 Black Tailed Godwits and 4 Whimbrel the best of the waders.

The morning however will go to 7+ Bearded Tits, juveniles all, it seemed staying faithful to one particular Reedbed, always good to catch up with these. Additionally they stayed for a good while allowing me to get some half decent photos.

Raptors were represented by Common Buzzard, Hobby, Kestrel, Marsh Harrier and a juvenile Peregrine flew overhead, no rings that we could see. This far out ‘in the wilds’ possibly a juvenile that has left the natal site and is now self-sufficient.

Good birds/migrants seen on the drive out to the road included a Northern Wheatear, 2 Corn Bunting, 4 Whinchat and a Stonechat.

Battersea Power Station July 2026

July is always a bit of a quiet month with birds, migrants mostly start to move  August onwards, consequently I was not expecting a high species count, however good to see many juveniles around.

Setting myself up on the Coaling Jetty looking down river, virtually the first wildlife seen was a Grey Seal, very distant but the unmistakable head shape was a give-away, this is the 3rd Grey Seal I have seen at the Power Station over the years.

There used to be a big male around Chelsea Harbour a few years back, I suspect it's even possible the same beastie not being that far up river.

A good start to the morning as I then set about locating the Peregrines, the male(ABB) was very evident still at roost in the early hour, however the female was nowhere to be seen.

I left him in peace whilst I checked the Northern Park and Switch House East Gardens amongst others, good to note previously from the gardening team, that one of the nest boxes had a family of Blue Tits in it. I dare say this was the family seen up there later.

Looking down on Phase 3/4,I immediately located the pair of Black Redstarts on the Rock Pile, an elusive species as we know, they are very much at home on the Rocks with all its nooks and crannies.

Eventually the female Peregrine arrived with prey, which immediately stopped the male from actively hunting.

There then followed a number of chases after feeding, as she tried to cache the prey somewhere he would not locate it, eventually the pressure paying off as he claimed his share.

Still on 99 species for the life list - the 100th is out there somewhere.

                                                              Male after a Feral Pigeon

Pair of Black Redstarts

 

A Very Lucky Peregrine

Quite an eventful weekend covering several Peregrine Sites, I also witnessed some remarkable behaviour from a female juvenile.

Whilst watching on Sunday I heard the unmistakable sound of juvenile peregrines, on locating the source of the noise, no less than 3 juv Peregrines greeted me coming across the Thames, one with prey.
What alarmed me was the fact that an obvious female had the prey, she wouldn't give it up from the attention of the other 2, and in doing so, all were getting precariously near the water at times.

The inevitable happened and the female with the prey crashed into the water, my heart sank as I thought that's her lot. All the Gulls etc scattered, and I was thankful that no Great Black Backed Gulls were in the area, one or more would very likely kill her on the water.

However, all was not lost, floating now around 40 metres from rocks, she then started half flapping with her wings towards land, a semi swimming/flying action. As I willed her on, and despite quite obviously tiring with wet wings/body, she unbelievably made it to the Rocks!

Now just slightly just out of view in a position I couldn’t access, I kept an eye on this area, eventually a very wet juvenile emerged and flew out strongly over the river low and then gained height over my head.



I took photos as I always do and can confirm that it was no other than the female ADJ which I fostered on June 18th!

Ringed by Paul after the usual fantastic work by South Essex Wildlife Hospital to give her another chance, she is an incredibly lucky bird.

Absolutely fantastic to see her fully integrated into her new family, obviously not the ditching, hopefully she will learn her lesson from this, an exceptionally lucky Peregrine leading a charmed life it seems.

In June I picked up 2 drowned juveniles.

                                                    Being harassed by other juveniles

                                                                          Ditching

                                                                  A very wet ADJ