The beginning of April

From a week ago when I wrote about what was happening then, it's all happening now. (see previous article)

In anticipation of a pleasant day - as opposed to a cold drear one - I wandered into Wanstead Park on April 2nd for a quiet stroll. A text message reported a Ring Ouzel and a Redstart on nearby Wanstead Flats - both worthy of a twitchers presence - but I ain't really, and a stroll was more in mind. All the frog-spawn of 1st March has disappeared on 2nd April, but no sign of any tadpoles. No sign either of a Water Rail at the west end of Heronry Pond, but then I am surprised how late the one in Perch Pond has been seen - at least up until the last days of March.

Chiffchaffs are everywhere, it seems, now - and there are a number of Blackcaps singing, too. There was a brief song of a Willow Warbler by the Shoulder of Mutton, which is the first I have heard this year. But also there was quite a bit of alarm from various birds as a Sparrowhawk came down nearby. I didn't see the swans on the Shoulder of Mutton making a nest, but have been told that they've begun. Certainly a pair on Perch Pond look as though they may have settled down - or at least chosen a site as they are hardly settled;  they seem to be driving geese off the Perch and the Heronry Ponds!

Wood Anemones in Warren WoodThere are lots of trees bursting into leaf and bud at the moment: Field Maple and Norway Maple are particularly evident, and there are lots of flowering cherries in the streets and apple-blossom on the domesticated forms scattered around the Park. However, the Blackthorn is almost finished its flowering. as for flowers, Dandelions are profuse, the patch of Bugle near the Shoulder of Mutton is well in flower, but the glory was walking through Warren Wood to experience the Wood Anemones. I have never seen such large patches in the Park, and there are patches where I have never seen them before. If management took place to enhance these - requiring for example a lot of bramble-clearance - these could make the Park as famous for this species as it is fast becoming for Bluebells. And talking of Bluebells, there is already a haze of blue from the native ones in Chalet Wood, and the more vigorous Spanish ones are already in flower nearer the roadsides.

There are numbers of butterflies around too - those that I saw being Small White, Orange Tip, Speckled Wood and Peacock. Plenty of Bumble-bees - the species that I more readily identified appearing to be Bombus terrestris, but there were others, and other flying insects in the form of a species similar but smaller than the more familiar St. Mark's Fly, namely Bibio johannis, and a few of the interesting Bee-flys, Bombylius major. (more information)

Returning to birds, one of the Egyptian Geese was posing on the Ornamental Waters, but the other of the supposed pair was not in evidence. Might they be nesting? On the Plain - and audible from quite a distance - was a Lesser-spotted Woodpecker, drawing attention to itself by drumming for ages on a particularly resonant piece of wood. In amongst these Spring-like happenings, it was interesting to see that there were still a pair of Gadwall on Heronry Pond; this is a speceis that usually leaves for the summer.

Just lastly, there are two patches of a rather strange member of the onion family in Wanstead Park, one of which is near the WansteadPark/Northumberland Avenue entrance. I was interested to see a number of people take a closer look at it. and indeed one group asked me if I knew what it was. It is Few-flowered Garlic, Allium paradoxum. (photo)

I don't feel that I missed out on the Ring Ouzel and Redstart, having experienced so much else in a stroll .

Paul Ferris, 2nd April 2011