{"id":1689014,"date":"2017-10-06T18:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-10-06T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/?guid=687e74435d6532d87f426128495cd7fb"},"modified":"2019-12-23T01:23:29","modified_gmt":"2019-12-22T12:23:29","slug":"spotted-crake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/spotted-crake\/","title":{"rendered":"Spotted Crake"},"content":{"rendered":"

I had a bit of an epic survey day today, leaving home at 05:00 I was at Dagenham Docks (even less glamorous than it sounds) by 07:15. After this survey I had to cross Greater London in a north-west direction to St Albans. So having started so early I had a little time to play with and a couple of birds en-route.<\/p>\n

First-up I visited Hornchurch Country Park in the Ingrebourne Valley where a Spotted Crake has been present since 16th September. The bird showed well soon after I arrived and I enjoyed excellent views for the time I was there.<\/p>\n

Also here were Water Rail (two), Cetti’s Warbler (six) and a handful of Teal, Gadwall and Snipe. I have seen around seven Spotted Crake in the UK but not for many years and I have never photographed the species. It was a cracking little bird showing fairly well in an area of cattle grazed flooded swamp.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Spotted Crake (juvenile) – Hornchurch Country Park<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Spotted Crake (juvenile) – Hornchurch Country Park<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Spotted Crake (juvenile) – Hornchurch Country Park<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Spotted Crake (juvenile) – Hornchurch Country Park<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Spotted Crake (juvenile) – Hornchurch Country Park<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Spotted Crake (juvenile) – Hornchurch Country Park<\/p>\n

Next I visited Roding Valley Meadows near to Chigwell where a juvenile Red-necked Grebe has been present since 22nd September. While I have seen many Red-necked Grebe I have not seen the species in juvenile plumage so was keen to see this bird as I was pretty much passing by on route to St Albans.<\/p>\n

The bird was fairly mobile and often distant on the lake but eventually showed well in a secluded corner in the north-west of the lake.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Long-tailed Tit – Roding Valley Meadows, Chigwell<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Red-necked Grebe (juvenile) – Roding Valley Meadows, Chigwell<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Red-necked Grebe (juvenile) – Roding Valley Meadows, Chigwell<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Red-necked Grebe (juvenile) – Roding Valley Meadows, Chigwell<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Red-necked Grebe (juvenile) – Roding Valley Meadows, Chigwell<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\nSubscribe to our FREE Newsletter<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/span>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I had a bit of an epic survey day today, leaving home at 05:00 I was at Dagenham Docks (even less glamorous than it sounds) by 07:15. After this survey I had to cross Greater London in a north-west direction to St Albans. So having started so early I had a little time to play […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1921,"featured_media":2148796,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6984,5],"tags":[1330,2177,614,6383,703,613,4130,5973],"class_list":["post-1689014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blogs","category-wildlife","tag-gadwall","tag-long-tailed-tit","tag-rail","tag-red-necked-grebe","tag-snipe","tag-spotted-crake","tag-teal","tag-water-rail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1689014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1921"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1689014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1689014\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2148796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1689014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1689014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1689014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}