Following a discussion with Martin Petchey at Crossness today about the technical difficulties of getting a decent picture of the Pied Wagtails roosting on the non-native Oak outside Carpetright – near the clocktower on Bexleyheath Broadway – he has unexpectedly taken up the challenge, as evidenced by the photos presented below.
The birds are now gathering in the lower part of the tree where a significant number of leaves are still clinging on. It should be noted that the quality of these images is pretty much on a par with what you can see with the naked eye. [Click on them for a larger view – but note they have been compressed a bit for posting here]. I reckon about 43 birds can be made out in the pictures, which tallies with the in-roost count of about 50 I made after dark yesterday evening.
Bexleyheath Broadway Pied Wagtail roost (Photo: Martin Petchey)
Zoomed in a bit …. (Photo: Martin Petchey)
Wonderful! I’d only ever seen small numbers of pied wagtails (mostly in car parks) before and never seen them roosting until 2nd Jan this year in the middle of York – I counted about a couple of hundred roosting in several trees. Needn’t have gone so far to see them….next stop Bexleyheath I think, much easier to get to!
(and my photos from York are very similar to those in this post, it is difficult to get good pics of them!)