Ingrebourne Hill

[Eastside Urchin]

Is an extension of Hornchurch country park situated at dovers corner just behind the pub,I believe the "hill" is man made due to excravation works at the site which work is still on going to the east.I believe the work will finish next year and the park will open fully in 2010.

Some of the park is bike friendly with jumps but the bit i am interested in is next to the car park where there is 1 small pit and a small scrape which look very good for ducks and waders(although i haven't seen a wader apart from 3 lapwings in the 2 visits this week)

I think once the 1st lake starts to fill over winter it could throw up a few surprises.The site is only small but you can get good views of most of the 2 small lakes.I would say in total it is about 3/4 of the size of the scrape at belhus but being so close to rainham it has potential for overshoots.

What i have seen on 2 visits this week,totalling 2hours!!!

 

35-40 linnet

2 cettis warbler

2 chiffchaff

2 yellow wag

1 pied wag

2 little egret

1 grey heron

4 little grebe

4 gadwall

8 mallard

4 tufted duck(which proves the big pit is quite deep)

coots,moorhen

3 lapwing

2 mute swan

1 goldcrest

2 greenfinch

1 chaffinch

6 house sparrows

magpies,jackdaw,rook,carrion crow

1 common gull,black headed & herring gulls

1 dunnock

2 ring necked parakeets

 

As you can see there is plenty on offer there,i will definatly be keeping an eye on this place although its not really the sort of place you can spend more than a couple of hours unless you are planning a visit to the country park as well although it is a mile or so to the park,saying that there are a couple of small lakes and pits which i beleive are accessible from somewhere near the pub,i believe a lesser scaup was found on one of these last january.

[Dagger03]

UM - do you mean the bit next to the Albion pub about one hundred yards before DOvers?

 

Where is the entrance to the scrape and where is the car park? Or did you mean the pub car park?

 

Is it the small lake you can see from the old A13?

 

 

[Eastside Urchin]

yeah exactly there mate,i think the old pond is where you are thinking of as that has thrown a few delights up in its time,but past the pub (toward the cherry tree) is a land fill site and thames chase have opened part of that up,its a small project(not sure if i could actually call it a scrape but the birds i have seen there would suggest it is bird freindly,plenty of gravel pits etc to check out???

[Dagger03]

Briefly went there today - not a great deal about, but was very disappointed at the mass of rubbish which has already been strewn around this area - there is not a litter bin anywhere, and the edges of the lakes / ponds are already filling with bottles and empty cans.

 

But as you say - it has a lot of potential - I noticed that most of the birds were close to the reed beds adjacent to the old A13.

 

[Eastside Urchin]

yes,there were a few there.

I think if they are going to open sites like these to the public,they could at least clean the place once or twice a week.The areas aroun rainham and south hornchurch inc the country park and suffer from the same problems although they are important sites for birds,not enough is done to improve or at least maintain standards.

[Eastside Urchin]

I also think that once this area fills up with water a bit more i think that a few species may turn up.I predict early november may be good there,if we have a few inches of rain before then and spring will turn up the odd wader or two