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[the entrance to the short and rather tatty bit of the Hogsmill in question. Next left, the town hall. Next left, the bridge from which one can usually see a shoal of quite large fish, keeping their place, head into the current, without much apparent effort at all]. 

On the way back to the Rose car park at Kingston this afternoon, on the bit of Hogsmill behind the Police Station, we tweeted the very first grey wagtail of the year. The first such noticed since October 2021, as it happens at the very same place. See reference 1.

I thought grey wagtail to distinguish it from the common wagtail, but it now seems that the grey wagtail is a relative of the yellow wagtail and what I think of as the common wagtail, a common enough black and white bird here in Epsom, aka the pied wagtail, is a variety of the white wagtail. The taxonomy of the wagtails seems to be rather confused: maybe they are given to interbreeding.

Not as many wagtails noticed as I had thought at references 3 and 4. Although, as I recall, first noticed under the bridge over the River Tavy in Tavistock, the one by the Bedford Hotel - named for the Duke of Bedford who owns or used to own lots of land in the area. He also gave his name to Tavistock Square and a second cousin or something gave his to Russell Square. See reference 5.

PS 1: another senior moment in that until I happened to check with gmaps, I had thought the bridge in question was a bridge over the River Dart, name of the town notwithstanding. Brain clearly not what I once thought it was.

PS 2: we once stayed in the Bedford Hotel. I remember that I had one of my occasional back tooth aches while there and was reduced to buying some salt from a nearby convenience store. Which did the trick.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/10/kingston-one.html.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_wagtail.

Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/search?q=wagtail.

Reference 4: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/search?q=wagtail.

Reference 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_of_Bedford.