A grey and brown duck, its body moire black and white patterns, with yellow feet and a black bill in clear water over brown silt.

At low tide on the Wandle delta, a male gadwall was gently drifting as the Wandle flowed over the lower weir.

#birds #birding #ukbirds #wildlifephotography #wandle #gadwall

A black bird with a red and yellow beak floating on clear river water. It is covered in water droplets reflecting all the colours of the rainbow.

The rainbow moorhen.

Down to the delta on a sunny day at low tide, and this moorhen was really catching the light.

#birds #birding #ukbirds #wildlifephotography #wandle #moorhen

A brightly coloured duck, with a purple breast, orange cheeks and wings, a blue and red head and a blue and green back. There are white stripes on the head, wings, and body, with a red beak.

Today's #BirdOfTheDay theme is #Feathers.

So many feathers of different colours on this recent visitor to the Wandle delta, a male mandarin duck. A bright spring is forecast!

#birds #birding #wildlifephotography #wandle #mandarinduck

A pair of large birds making a sharp turn low over the surface of a river.

Today's #BirdOfTheDay theme is #LargeBirdsInFlight, birds bigger than ducks flying.

From my Wandle archive, a pair of herons showing just how manoeuvrable they can be...

#birds #birding #wildlifephotogaphy #wandle #heron

A cormorant on a wooden piling. It is a dark bronze bird, with a white face and a yellow flash over its green eyes. The base of its beak is starting to change colour.

And of course I couldn't visit the Wandle delta without checking for cormorants on the pilings. Today's is coming into its breeding plumage...

It was also a little bashful.

#birds #birding #wildlifephotography #wandle #wandsworth #cormorant

A brightly coloured duck floats on a river. It has a blue and orange head with a red crest and beak, a purple breast, orang wings, a blue-green back and a touch of white on the edges and tips of its wings.

In all the years of my Wandle wanders I haven't seen a mandarin duck. But today a pair were along Point Pleasant.

They don't look real.

#birds #birding #wildlifehotography #wandsworth #wandle #mandarinduck

A tiny brown bird standing on a thin branch, singing its heart out. You can see the yellow inside of its beak.

A tiny brown bird standing on a thin branch, singing its heart out. You can see the yellow inside of its beak.

A brief wander down the Wandle delta, where a wren was proving just how noisy a little bird can be.

#bird #birding #wildlifephotography #wandle #wandsworth #wren

A male eurasian teal, swimming up a shallow river. He is a small duck, with a fine black and white striped body and a russet head with a green stripe over the eye.

Today's #BirdOfTheDay theme is #Migratory, and so here is our harbinger of winter on the Wandle, the Eurasian teal. They'll soon be heading north for the summer.

#birds #birding #ukbirding #wildlifephotography #wandle #teal

A white and grey bird with yellow legs and beak standing on mixed gravel in clear water. There is a flash of red on its lower beak.

Today's #BirdOfTheDay theme is #Grounded, any bird on natural ground.

I shall cheat a little, with a yellow-legged gull standing in very shallow water on a gravel bank in the Wandle delta on a summer low tide...

#birds #birding #ukbirding #wildlifephotography #wandle #gulls

A male and female eurasian teal on a grey river. The male is in the foreground, with a black and white moire body and a russet head with a green stripe over the eye. The female is a mottled brown and white.

Today's #BirdOfTheDay theme is #MarriedCouples.

And so, from the Wandle delta, a pair of my favourite seasonal visitors, Eurasian Teal whistling their way along the river.

#birds #birding #ukbirding #wildlifephotography #wandle #teal

A group of large ducks taking flight in a splash of water, they are grey and brow, with red and white on their wings.

Today's #BirdOfTheDay theme is #Splash.

Here's the local flock of gadwalls in action, showing off the red on their wings along with that distinctive flash of white.

#birds #birding #wildlifephotography #wandle #gadwall

Four small ducks, three male, one female, standing in fast-flowing water. The males are grey with russet heads and a green stripe over their eyes. The female is a dappled brown and grey. All have flashes of green under their folded wings.

So today's #BirdOfTheDay alternate theme is #Green (the main is #Feeders, but I don't have any pictures that fit that theme).

So here is a small flock of Eurasian Teal on the Wandle delta, with their green eye patches and a flash of green wings.

#birds #birding #wildlifephotography #wandle #teal

Today's #BirdOfTheDay theme is #Sideprofiles with an alternate option of #Robins.

A trip to the Spit in the Wandle earlier in the winter gives us a two-for-one as this robin sings his territorial bounds.

#birds #birding #wildlifephotography #wandle #robin

A dark black/green bird with a yellow face standing on a large wooden post in a river.

Today's #BirdOfTheDay theme is a #Photogenic bird.

I think that has to be the cormorants posing on the plinths of the Point Pleasant pilings.

#birds #birding #wildlifephotography #wandle #cormorant

A small grey and yellow bird with a long tail standing in a river.

Today's #BirdOfTheDay theme is #StandingInWater. I think I might be a little spoilt for choice living by the Wandle delta...

But maybe something a little different? Here's a grey wagtail having a bit of a paddle underneath the Wandle weir.

#birds #birding #wildlifephotography #wandle #wagtail

A white bird with a long neck and black legs and beak is standing in fast-flowing water that reflects a blue sky. It has one yellow foot out of the water.

Today's #BirdOfTheDay theme is #SteppingOut.

Here's a little egret under the Wandle weir bridge, using its bright yellow foot to feel for food passing by in the fast-flowing river.

#birds #birding #wildlifephotography #wandle #egret

A seagull is attacking a heron. It is flying above the bird, which is defensively raising its wings. The heron is standing in a river at low tide.

Today's #BirdOfTheDay them is #MixedPairs, two birds of different species in the same image.

Down on the Wandle delta a grey heron and a yellow-legged gull were having an altercation.

#birds #birding #wildlifephotography #wandle #heron #gull

A juvenile cormorant with its white breast stands on a wooden piling.

Today's #BirdOfTheDay theme is #BestOfTheMonth.

There were a couple of breaks in the incessent rain of this winter, and so I had a couple of Wandle wanders, where I caught this juvenile cormorant on one of the Point Pleasant pilings.

#birds #birding #wildlifephotography #wandle #cormorant

A heron, wings spread wide and with its feet skimming the calm water of a river, is landing.

Today's #BirdOfTheDay prompt is #WideOpenWings.

So from the Wandle delta, one of the local grey herons making a landing. I do love the wake from its feet skimming the surface of the river.

#birds #birding #wildlifephotography #wandle #heron

A great crested grebe caught preening itself on the Wandle delta.

Today's #BirdOfTheDay theme is #RuffledFeathers, with an alternate theme of #Brown.

And so, from down on the delta, one of the resident great crested grebes mid-bath. Another two-for-one!

#birds #birding #wandsworth #wildlifephotography #wandle #grebes

A female teal drifts down the Wandle delta, showing a small flash of green/blue wing feathers under her usual mottled brown.

Friends have asked me, why aren't teal, well, teal?

They are. They hide it well. But this morning this female gave us a little teaser as she swam down the delta.

#birds #birding #wildlifephotography #wandle #teal #ducks

A flock of gadwall, large brown and grey ducks, feeding at the point the Thames and Wandle meet. They are on a blue river, with brown reflections of nearby buildings.

It's interesting watching the waterfowl on the Wandle delta change over the years. It was only a winter or so ago I saw my first gadwall, now the confluence with the Thames is full of them...

#birds #birding #thames #wandle #wildlifephotography #ducks #gadwall

You can tell spring is on the way; the black-headed gulls down on the delta are starting to molt into their breeding plumage.

#birds #birding #wildlifephotography #wandle #gulls

A cormorant stands on a wooden piling, its wings spread out to dry.

Today's #BirdOfTheDay theme is #Portrait, so it's a good job the cormorants were posing on the Point Pleasant pilings when I wandered down the Wandle for a birding session this morning as it wasn't raining!

#birds #birding #wildlifephotography #wandle #cormorants

A pair of grey and white birds with long necks and pointed beaks, their heads crowned with black feathers and a ruff of red and black around their necks. They are swimming and facing each other with their beaks slightly off to one side.

Today's #BirdOfTheDay theme is #Waterbirds. Which is an easy one for me, seeing as my usual birding spot is down on the Wandle delta.

Here are a pair of great-crested grebes showing their mating behaviours from last spring.

#birds #birding #wandle #wildlifephotography #grebes

A head on look at a black-headed gull in its non-breeding plumage of grey and white, with red legs and a beak. The background is distant and blurred.

Monday's #BirdOfTheDay theme is #StareDown, a bird looking right at you... The alternate is #Gulls.

How about both? A non-breeding plumage black-headed gull down on the Spit.

#birds #birding #wandle #wildlifephotography

A grey duck moves smoothly across still water reflecting green leaves, with just a gentle ripple behind it.

Today's #BirdOfTheDay theme is #Serenity.

And so a gadwall drifts across the Wandle delta, on a spring day, under reflected green trees.

#birds #birding #wildlifephotography #wandle #gadwall

A black crow with eyes reflecting the sky sits on a railing; the background blurs the river and the Fulham and Putney bridges.

A rose-ringed parakeet sits in a plane tree. She has fluffed her feathers up for warmth.

A black crow sits in a bare plane tree, looking out at the park around it.

A group of gadwalls sits at the confluence of the Wandle and the Thames at low tide. There are so many of them now, when just a couple of years ago there were none.

The sun was out, so I wandered down the Wandle for a quick look at the loal birds this morning. Oddly the delta was empty; I suspect the amount of water coming down the weir had scoured it clear.

Crows, parakeets, and gadwalls.

#birds #birding #wandle #wandsworth #wildlifephotography

A heron standing on marshy greenery with an eel gripped by the head in its part-open beak. The eel's tail is whipping around in the air.

Today's #BirdOfTheDay theme is #OpenBeak.

In which case, it's a trip to the Wandle delta archives for a great grey heron mid-epic struggle with an eel.

#birds #birding #wandle #wildlifephotography #heron #eel

A cormorant standing on a wooden piling and looking head on at the camera. he back is bokeh yellow sunlight.

Today's #BirdOfTheDay theme is #EyeContact.

Another of the Wandle cormorants today, on the Point Pleasant pilings, head on with those big green eyes.

#birds #birding #wandle #wildlifephotography #cormorant