Christine's walking & birds blog

Jubilee River Gannet!

It's Greger's Spanish night, so I set off for a nice unhurried wander round Dorney Wetlands. A flock of about twenty swallows was a cheering sight, while two snipe dashing over lent a wild feel to the place.

Walking back, I was treated to several bursts of song from the Cetti's warbler and a brief glimpse as the bird flitted between bushes in the reed-bed. Cormorants were flying upstream in twos and threes.

I was about to call it a day when a sleek torpedo shape went cruising by along the river - clearly no cormorant. The plumage was dark above and pale below, and my mind raced...."A diver? No.....it's a gannet! Blimey, it's a gannet!"

I lost the bird behind the trees on the bank, so it was fortunate that it veered away from the river and gained a little height. The gannet profile against the sky was unmistakable. I just had time to click off two hopeless, distant shots (I could see from the red frame in the viewfinder that the camera hadn't been able to focus) as it passed into Bucks, flying incongruously over the cottage on Lake End Road and vanishing into the gloom.

I ran all the way back to the car park, across the road and as far as the footbridge on the other side - but I wasn't to see it again.

There had been no time to even think of phoning it in; and as I walked back to the car I decided against doing so now as it was too dark for anyone to follow it up.