birdlife Archives - Friends of Brockwell Park

Join us for an early start on 15 April in beautiful Brockwell Park for a guided walk, led by RSPB Central London Group. At 6am, we will walk round part of the park to see what birds are about and listen to their songs and calls. We expect to hear song and mistle thrushes, blackbirds, robins, goldfinches, greenfinches, chaffinches, great tits and blue tits, to name a few. Other possibilities include great spotted woodpecker, nuthatch and blackcap. We’ll also see several species of water birds at the ponds.

Birds: it’s worth sacrificing a bit of sleep to see them.

We have been given permission to enter the park before it opens to the public, and there should be a special peaceful atmosphere at this time. We will start the walk at 6am and we expect it to last for one and a half to two hours. (A nearby cafe opens at 8am if anyone fancies a well-earned coffee!)

The leaders of the walk will be Czech Conroy and Graeme Hutchinson, two members of this RSPB group’s Executive Committee. They both live locally.

Buses 3, 196, 68, 468 and 37 all stop nearby. If coming by car, you’ll probably have to park in a side street nearby.

Meet at the Herne Hill Gate entrance to the park on 15 April at 6am. This gate will be opened temporarily just for this walk. However, please note that the other park gates will be shut until the normal opening time of 6.30am. The event is free although donations to the park are always welcome. Do bring a pair of binoculars if you possess them.

At the beginning of January this year, when walking in Brockwell Park, I saw a song thrush. Unmistakeable in its slim, elegant outline, whitish speckled front and greyish back. Shy, flying away straightway as I neared on the path. Too early in the year for her song, though.

Quite different from the female blackbird, semi-tame, who would continue her listening and prodding in the grass as I would near and pass; and dressed in rusty brown plumage, and plump. Up in the trees, blackbirds are calling from early before dawn.

Quite different again from the last time I saw a song thrush in the park, probably late April or early May, four years ago. A tragic drama was playing out. Two heavy black-billed crows were raiding the thrush’s nest, with the thrush screeching frantically, fluttering around, ineffectually. I had not seen one since, though looking forlornly.

This morning’s sighting reminded me of words quoted by Sir David Attenborough on a BBC ‘Tweet of the day’ a few years back, when introducing the Song Thrush: words from ‘Home thoughts from abroad’ by Robert Browning, second stanza:

II.

And after April, when May follows,
And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!
Hark, where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops, at the bent spray’s edge,
That’s the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!
And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children’s dower
Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!

I hope we shall hear the song thrush in Brockwell Park again this May.

Edward Lavender, FoBP Committee Member

Category: birdlife

Hear the dawn chorus in Brockwell Park

Song Thrush