Birds of a feather...

The golden warm autumn days returned briefly to London.  Briefly, as in on Saturday I only needed a cardigan, but by this morning there was fog everywhere when I woke up. Gloves and scarves c-o-l-d.   But as I say, Saturday was glorious. So The Boyfriend and I headed down to Barnes to the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust.

We spent the first part of our visit in the hides overlooking the wetland and saw cormorants, great crested grebes, little grebes, bittern, wigeon, cranes, oyster catchers, different kinds of gulls, swans, ducks and geese. There was a rumour that mallard ducklings had hatched because of the weather fluctuations, but we didn't see any. Hope they've survived.

I particularly liked this little chap who we think is a Nene or Hawaiian Goose. He took a shine to The Boyfriend and tried to peck a chunk of his Redwings. Yes that's right, once again The Boyfriend cut a dash as a Shoreditch squire on an outdoorsy day out.  

The highlight of the day was just before dusk when all the birds started to flock in the half light and we were surrounded by tens of whistling ducks making high pitched calls to each other.  And just as we left the bats started to cluster.  Such a lovely day out and only an hour across London too.  I think we'll go back in spring or summer to see how things have changed.