The major success of the summer here has been the breeding of two pairs of common tern (below). A juvenile from the first brood had fledged on the last day of June, and the juvenile from the other brood fledged just over a week later. Both youngsters could be seen flying around, attempting to fish. The older chick and its parents departed around the middle of the month and probably joined the tern colony at nearby Walthamstow Wetlands, whilst the other family stayed a bit longer and were last seen on the 24th.
Chris Farthing’s Woodberry bird highlights: July 2024
Photo credit: Chris Farthing
Typical features of July here are the tail-end of the breeding season, the return of some of our winter resident birds, and increasing hope of passage migrants as the month goes on.
Photo credit: Chris Farthing
Other evidence of successful local breeding have been the family of eight Egyptian geese which have been visiting here regularly after breeding in Clissold Park, and the family of mute swans with seven fully grown cygnets on the New River alongside the reservoir. However, breeding of waterbirds on the reservoir has been poor this year. Mallards are the only ducks to have bred, with no breeding by geese at all. Neither of our regular grebe species are believed to have bred either, although an adult-sized juvenile little grebe was seen here on the 18th. Great crested grebes had a few failed breeding attempts earlier in the year but the species was completely absent for the latter half of July.
The first returning teal arrived on a fairly early date of July 20th. Shoveler were present all month with numbers peaking at twelve on the 31st. Several of our common duck species build up to a peak in late summer and early autumn, and by the end of July we had over thirty each of gadwall and pochard. A pochard x tufted duck hybrid (below) was amongst the pochard flock on the 23rd.
Photo credit: Chris Farthing
Kingfisher is a regular species here most winters and July is usually the month when we get the first sightings after their absence for the breeding season. This year the first sighting of ‘winter’ was on the 27th.
The peak count of swifts often occurs in July once the local juveniles fledge and the highest count this month was 55. House martins started to appear in the last week of the month and were up to double figures on the last day of July.
The total number of bird species seen here in July 2024 was 56, well down on the historical average for July.