The top 10 birds of Wanstead 2009–2018: No. 2

No.2  Wryneck

17^th–24th September 2010 east of Alexandra Lake

25^th–30th August 2012 in the Lake House Scrub (SSSI)

3^rd–9th September, 2013 Long Wood for about a week

30^th August–3^rd September 2015 Long Wood

All great birds (well not the last one!), but I think the longer serving of us would go for the first, our first, my first (a lifer, and out of the 6 I've seen 4 have been here), and another dream come true.  A regular coastal migrant in the autumn, but we here in London to get one or two a year, and they always draw a crowd.  The only problem being refinding the bird when one group has departed and the next arrive! Unless of course you are LGRE and then you just plough through everything (He is said to have thought Wanstead Flats referred to a block of flats. Just with a lot of good birds in it!).

I remember very little of the early morning of 16th September. It was overcast though not cold, and Steve T and I had had a rewarding day for early autumn. From my notes:“4  Wheatear,  2 Whinchat, Tree Pipit, numbers of passage warblers and a couple of Spotted Flycatchers recorded on the loop from Capel Point to the Alex via the eastern edge of Long Wood.”  There, on the return leg, a female Redstart caught my eye, flying between the bushes. With another appearance not forthcoming I wandered back down the path and saw a couple of Chaffinches in a hawthorn. For want of anything better to look at I raised my bins to give them the once over. A curious looking Chaffinch appeared in my field of view. In my larger bins, this curious finch now had a stripe through its eye ….

Cue expletives, and a quickening heart rate. I signalled to Steve, regretting it immediately as he wheeled his squeaky bike towards me.  “Lose the ******* bike” I hissed.  “Wryneck!” Once he was on the bird I quickly phoned Jono. I can’t remember what his reaction was, but by now my legs were jelly. I tried to get Steve to let me use his shoulder to digi-bin a record shot—but he was not obliging. For ten minutes the bird perched, gazing around, but before Jono arrived it flew past us up and around the south end of Long Wood.

The next day I was looking at a Chaffinch in the scrub by Alexandra Lake

“Jono. It’s Nick.  It’s happened again ...”

Jono L: "A Wryneck is a dream of a patch bird for a London site like Wanstead..."

"I've seen 4 on the patch, enough said!"

http://www.wansteadbirder.com/2010/09/sheer-agony.html

http://www.wansteadbirder.com/2010/09/sheer-delight.html 

http://www.wansteadbirder.com/2010/09/more-wryneck.html

Tony B:  "I didn’t see the patch’s first Wryneck, so to find another the following year sitting motionless in a Hawthorn bush (it was later named the magic bush) in the SSSI was a bit special"

http://www.thecowboybirder.com/2012/08/wryneck-and-hungover.html

http://www.thecowboybirder.com/2012/08/wryneck-still-show-at-patch-near-me.html 

Tim H: "The first one, not least that because it was so showy, unlike the others, and stayed for a full 9 days"

James H: "Spending time alone one evening with my UK first and only Wryneck in the Brooms in August 2015."

https://iago80.wordpress.com/2015/08/ 

David Campbell, 18th September 2010