We’re into the ‘tweaking’ phase of the seasonal proceedings now: buying strange odds and ends that haven’t made it onto previous lists, but suddenly seem as if they might be the one crucial thing that makes or breaks Christmas. Sigh.
A week from now….
Anyway, we were in Stratford, as per, and I took some time out to go in search of birds at the river. I’ve noticed several times now that when a storm comes through, the Black-headed Gulls disappear – though where they go, I have absolutely no idea. Generally they reappear as soon as calm is restored, which on this occasion was yesterday – except that yesterday there was barely any sign of them, other than an occasional high flyer, circling over the Old Tramway basin, which I took to be a kind of scout. I wondered if their continued absence was due to the fact that the river was out of its banks, but only because on a calm and sunny day that was the one unusual factor I could pinpoint.
Today the river was still in flood, though lower than yesterday; and the gulls were back, but acting abnormally. They seemed to be avoiding the water, only landing very briefly (if at all), and then lifting off again – which might have been reasonable at the river, where presumably the current was still quite strong, but didn’t make much sense at the canal basin. Nor did they gather on their usual perches – bridge rails, jetties and the roofs of barges – but instead clustered in crowded, squabbling groups on the tops of lamp posts, where they were mainly too far away for photos.
In another departure from the norm, the feral pigeons which gather on the roofs at Cox’s Yard were highly reactive today, taking to the air en masse every few minutes (like the proverbial… flock of pigeons) – and the gulls were equally antsy, taking off whenever the pigeons went up, and weaving in and out of the overhead pigeon murmuration in a sort of aerial fugue. It was extremely annoying. Eventually though, a few of them came down and flew a little lower, and I managed to capture a handful of images. I’ve chosen this one because, with no background to give it context, it has a graphic quality that I rather like.
R: L2, C3, D2.
