Haynes Park, Hornchurch

As with everybody else, no the majority, sorry some, i am at home and i venture out for a walk everyday. This has meant i am now visitng the local park and Swan Pond. The Swan Pond is not in the park and i'll come onto that another time. As for Haynes Park, its extacly what you would expect from a local park.

Its not large. It has a small postage stamp size area of mixed woodland, a playing area for children, edged by back gardens and The Ravensbourne running along its main length as it heads towards Harrow Lodge Park. The river isnt exactly large at this point and in some cases under normal flow you can stand in it with normal shoes and not get wet feet - basically its a moving puddle. The good news is it has very little litter. Its enclosed for most of its journey through the park by the trees as such most areas cannot be accessed.

This park is never going to be a major attraction for birds and my garden is so close that i probably will be duplicating lists. Hey ho, its something to do in these odd times.

Highlights if you can call them that include a pair of Moorhen that breed last year and are still holding firm in the green bridge area. Not on the garden list but they are on my noc mig list. It also does well for Lesser Whitethroat in the summer however not so well for Common Whitethroat. I have no record so far.

The fields are boggy like most places presently and this is attracting more gulls than normal. 115 Black Head Gull yesterday, 30 Common, 1 Lesser. A yellow ringed North Thames Gull Group Black Headed but i couldnt get the ring number apart from the inital no.2.

Grey Wagtail is pretty frequent at the furthest (river) corner, the river is lined with concrete which has created good conditions for them at this stretch.

Numbers of corvids are large, highest count of Carrion Crow so far has been over 100 birds all on the fields, add to this the Jackdaw, Jays and Magpies and its over 115. Why? the dog walkers love to feed them. The Crows will follow you around at you feet in large numbers.

Peregrine is also a very good possibility, seen regularly in the area and with pigeon roosting flats at both ends of the park, its just timing.

Probably the largest species represented over the park though is Dog 😕. The standard mornings are a joke and unless you want to get jumped up at and covered in mud, avoid it. Beat the dog walkers and i'm sure something could turn up here.