Dear Readers, today I headed south-west for a trip to Barnes and the London Wetland Centre. The centre was established in 2000, after many years of planning, on the site of four redundant reservoirs. Today, it’s one of the best sites for bird watching and nature in general in London. Plus I’d also thought of it as being difficult to get to from here in East Finchley, but actually it takes just about an hour via Waterloo.

First up though, what on earth was this object at Waterloo Station? It was completely wrapped in black plastic when I travelled through en route to Dorset last week, but this week it’s revealed as an enormous advert for Kate Spade, an American fashion designer. A little train whizzes around the bottom, bearing a miniature pile of parcels. I confess myself underwhelmed. I rather like the red and green lights on the iconic Waterloo clock though.

Downstairs a whole new shopping centre is appearing in what used to be the Eurostar terminal, before it was moved to St Pancras. Alas, the toilets upstairs have been closed for refurbishment so us ladies are directed downstairs where there are about half the number of cubicles. Be warned! Though there is a very golden Christmas tree down here, so it’s not a completely wasted detour.

And up at the top level there’s a statue dedicated to the people who arrived on the Windrush. They were invited here to work on the railways and in the National Health Service and received a mixed greeting to say the least. What a cold place London must have seemed.

Anyhow, half an hour later I’m striding up to the entrance of the Wetlands Centre, pausing only to admire the statue of Sir Peter Scott, who did so much for the birds of the UK. What an astonishing man he was! He founded the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, which has nine reserves, including this one and Slimbridge, which was where Scott started to document the differences between the Bewick’s Swans who appeared every winter.  He was the founder of the World Wildlife Fund, and the originator of the Red Data Books on endangered species in 1962. Truly, he was ahead of his time. He also managed to save the Hawaiian NeNe goose from extinction.

Anyhow, I was at the Wetlands Centre to meet my god daughter, who is a vet. I am as proud as punch! She has a great fondness for otters, so we went to see the Asian Short-Clawed otters being fed. The centre is mostly comprised of wetland habitat for wild birds, but they also have a fine collection of waterfowl and these two mammals.

I wasn’t that surprised when, at 5 minutes to feeding time, a heron turned up.

They seem to have a good sense of time – the otter feeder wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Did the bird notice that the people had gathered, I wonder? I wouldn’t put anything past them.

Anyhow, the keeper came out with what looked like some very nicely filleted trout (I’ve been watching Masterchef The Professionals so I know it’s All About the Detail). The otters seemed less than impressed, but were eventually persuaded to get stuck in.

The heron kept a discreet distance, but missed nothing, and eventually got some fish that the otters had missed.

Mostly, though, it stood around looking elegant, only moving when the otters came within nipping distance.

And then we wandered off to see the rest of the wildfowl. There is one pond completely surrounded by swamp cypress and at this time of year it’s losing its leaves. Just look at the colours!

And here are some goldeneye and some smew, looking very handsome. This is a great time of year to look at ducks, they’re all in tip-top plumage.

 

And what, you may ask, is that Smew doing in a wire basket? This is a very handy way of feeding the diving ducks without the herons/mallards/gulls being able to get at it. The diving ducks just pop underneath and pop up in the feeding area, and then pop up outside again. The poor old mallards can only eat what they can reach with their beaks.The next lake over had some buffleheads and some hooded merganser.

Plus some shoveller ducks who may or may not be wild.

We passed two chaps on our way out of the wildfowl collection and into the ‘wild’ part of the centre. They had been eagerly looking for a bearded tit who had been spotted, but in all these acres of reeds you’d have to be lucky to find one, for sure. How beautiful it is in this low winter light, though!

It was very quiet in the hide, and we spotted wigeon…

Gadwall….

There were great rafts of teal, their rust and green heads shining in the sunshine.

You really get the sense that something magical could appear around the corner at any point here, or, more often, that  you’ve just missed something. If I lived a bit closer, I would definitely pop in regularly to see who was about. There are water voles here too, but usually the most you can spot is the ‘plop’ as they jump into the water and head off to safety. After all, with all these reeds, why would you make yourself too visible?

After all this excitement we were hungry, so we headed back to the cafe for a sandwich, and tomorrow I’ll tell you about the second part of our trip. I was very excited to see this giant dragonfly though 🙂