My Life is Fly II

A bit of an iconic bird for Wanstead is the Spotted Flycatcher. The first returning birds (since we rarely get a sniff in the spring) are eagerly awaited, probably because they are the most photogenic of all the migrants. While Whinchat, Redstart may well be more colourful they will lead you a merry dance, a spotty will virtually sit in your lap! And being the most obvious of the autumn migrants, they are one of the more numerous, which belies their decline as a whole in the UK as they fast retreat northwards. I remember them nesting in the old orchard behind my parents house in Cambridge and they used to nest here too. Not any more.

That's why we like to fill our boots with these charming birds, in a few weeks they to will have gone, and like the Turtle Dove and other migrants, you never know whether you will see another one on the patch again.