Playing it cool for the Waterthrush

I made the trip to Heybridge this morning to see the Northern Waterthrush. I had wondered when the first over-wintering Yank would be found after the mega-fall in the autumn, but a bird an hour away in Essex had not been on my radar at all. It was found late last week I think, just as I was leaving the country. There was no need to panic as I'd seen the bird on Scilly many years ago, but part of me felt that fear of missing out. A Waterthrush! In Essex! Happily it was still on offer when I got back yesterday. Otherwise engaged, I had to wait until today, but the bird played ball.

Mick picked me up around 8am, and by 9.20am we were on site. Twenty minutes of that was the walk from the designated car park near Heybridge Basin, so it was of course rather disappointing (but not in the least surprising) to discover that many there had decided that parking opposite the bird and in front of people's houses at 7am on a Sunday morning was absolutely A-OK. Clearly more convenient but imagine if that were your house. I'd be properly pissed off.

We had missed the early morning showings, but the bird returned a few hours later as has consistently been the case the last few days. A good thing it did as by this point, sitting on the cold ground, my backside was numb. Shutters went nuts as you can imagine, including my own, although somehow I had managed to dial in the ISO to 8000 when I had meant to stop at 3200. Oh well, at least it meant a reasonably decent shutter speed - it is quite dark in the bird's favoured ditch. It landed in small oak first, giving the game away with its sharp metallic call as it dropped in. Pausing momentarily it then skipped into the ditch and started to feed along the edges, coming ever closer. Oh boy. 

It may have jumped up onto the nice mossy culvert wall, but we will never know as when the bird was reasonably close and getting closer a long blast of a car horn sent it skittering back down the channel and soon after that it was off. Presumably this was a local venting his or her frustration at having to slalom down their own street. People were sarcastically irritated - "Thanks mate!", "Bet that was on purpose", but you reap what you sow frankly. 

In other news I had a quick mooch around the western side of Wanstead Flats later in the afternoon, hoping to pick up Tony's Med Gull that Richard had refound when I was in Essex. I wasn't holding out a great deal of hope that it was there still, but soon after meeting Nick and agreeing that it had likely done one I picked it out in the melee. A bird I didn't get on the patch last year - alongside Snipe and Lapwing, both of which have already fallen (to others!) this year. Funny how these things pan out. It was to get better though, as standing chewing the fat with Nick back towards my house he picked out a Great White Egret flying over us. Remarkably it landed in what we call the 'Boggy Bit' and as the inevitable flushing by our four-legged friends occured I was able to video it flying off. This was my 7th GWE for the patch, all of which have been since 2018 - clearly increasing. So all in all a fine day with a few decent birds to kick off the year with.

A site revisited

The other day I had to go out birding four times! This is a very good sign. For some reason I am now taking more of an interest in my year list, whereas in the spring I do not recall being as enthused. I suppose spring is exciting as everything is new and it heralds the end of the gloom, but autumn is just better - there is greater diversity and birds linger. We have had as many as 11 Whinchat on the patch recently, for multiple days. I've maxed out at seven, a little short of my record of 10 some years back, but this is nonethless very pleasing. Especially when they are accompanied by other goodies. Last week I nipped out to the VizMig spot and had six Whinchat, four Wheatear and a Tree Pipit within a hundred yards and ten minutes. Five minutes from my door! Five!! 

The Tree Sparrow seems to have gone - two days I think, possibly three. That will almost certainly be the best bird of the year. More suprisingly the Wryneck was never seen again, which is the first time that this has happened. Usually they stick but this one turned out be a one day wonder. Possibly proximity to the very loud funfair convinced it to move on, so I was fortunate to get it at the first attempt.

On Sunday a juvenile Cuckoo appeared. Remarkably this was on exactly the same day as I saw Cuckoo here last year, and it clearly can't be a returning bird! Nick found it somewhere near Long Wood, and when I toddled out a little while later I almost trod on it in the Brick Pits. It had been feeding on the ground, and on seeing me flew up and away. It did not go far, and I put it up again as soon as turned the corner. The bird last year stayed for ages, so perhaps this one will be seen again. It is only the third I've ever seen here.

Good as Wanstead Flats has been, my best birding was elsewhere. Rob suggested he might be going to check out East Tilbury, and I cheekily asked if I could join him. Before he could say no Bob, James and Tim piled in too, so much for the quiet life! And so early on Sunday morning we abandoned Wanstead and headed East. I'd not been to East Tilbury since 2011 when I was a much more active local birder in the roving sense. Rainham, Walthamstow, West Thurrock and Amwell, as well as sites like Staines over to the west. Nowadays I am almost solely to be found in Wanstead - probably to my detriment as East Tilbury was amazing.

Wanstead on Tour (photo: James H)

Paul W and Paul H, site regulars, were already there and perhaps a little dismayed to see so many birders descend. Cue many jokes about installing turnstiles, charging for entry and so on. And stringing! We had missed the flock of Little Terns, but the river still delivered over 100 Common Terns and a small number of Black Terns in with them. The receding tide exposed acres of mud upon which hundreds and hundreds of Avocets and Black-tailed Godwits fed, with smaller numbers of Grey Plover, Dunlin, Redshank and Ringed Plover. It was an extraordinary scene - the number of Avocets in particular has grown and grown, with site peak counts of 3000. All I can say was that there were too many to even attempt to count.

Yellow Wagtails zipped overhead, I was lucky enough to get a Tree Pipit doing the same. There were even some Whinchat, not as many as in Wanstead, obviously, but still a new one for my fledgling East Tilbury list. The site has changed a lot in the ten years since I last visited, and there is now a fine new series of scrapes at the far end which commanded most of our interest, not least due to the presence of some lingering Stone Curlew, a species I've not seen for ages. Egrets, ducks, a few Green Sandpiper and a Marsh Harrier completed a fine line up that saw us collectively record 70 species in our short visit. It was a great couple of hours and we all agreed we would be back once we work out how to negotiate the new barbed wire that Hawky said is about to be fitted. By him. 

A change is good as a rest

This weekend just gone I birded so much my eyes hurt. Patch abandoned, no two hour Saturday morning stroll for me. Instead a marathon weekend of dawn to dusk birding. I have been threatening it of course, and now that I have done it I want to do it again. As a change of scene goes it was fantastic, and really drove home quite how dull birding in London most often is. 

Call me shallow, but 2 Smew, 4 Long-tailed Duck, a Ring-necked Duck, a Scaup, 2 Great Northern Diver, a Black-necked Grebe, 7 Great White Egret, 2 Cattle Egret, 2 Rough-legged Buzzard, a Merlin, 4 Hen Harrier, 11 Marsh Harrier, a Siberian Stonechat, a Grey-bellied Brent and an Eastern Yellow Wagtail have convinced me that there is perhaps more to birding than repeated visits to Wanstead Flats. Add to that a supporting cast of thousands upon thousands of seven other species of geese, and countless waders and ducks in fabulous scenery, and I am sold. Re-sold. 

This of course is something I used to do a lot, but for whatever reason I fell out of love with it. I have no idea why, it was terrific. There was some driving of course, but not the mind-numbing hours and hours that a long-distance twitch incurs, and most of it was done in the dark. And the rewards at the end of the journeys was frankly staggering for someone numbed by the weekly routine of urban birding.

That is not to say that the weekend was perfect in every way. My metaphorical spectacles are not so rose-tinted as to be able to deny some of the more unavoidable aspects of birding the North Norfolk coast in early January - that is to say that I felt rather as if we were in a procession of sorts for most of the day, seeing the same birds as everyone else. A shuffling doddery green-clad procession...  One man I saw four times, and to be fair he could have said the same about us. Were I to spend all of my time up there I expect that it would drive me stark-raving bonkers, however the excitement of a fresh year list will no doubt wane shortly and my next visit, whenever that is, will probably be rather calmer. The birds were good enough that none of this really mattered, and the landscape vast. At any other time of year you could probably find a few spots that get no visitors at all.

Out here were 7 Marsh Harrier, 3 Hen Harrier, 1 Merlin, 1 Peregrine and 1 Sparrowhawk. 

Suffolk and Essex were far less busy, neither are on the birding map in quite the same way, and I suspect that I will head back there first. Abberton, immense, was exceptionally good. Freezing but excellent. Wanstead has had so few ducks of late, Abberton has thousands, and I spent a happy hour or picking through flocks of Teal in the hope of a vertical stripe. A vain hope... Neither could we dredge up the Black-throated Diver.

This of course was before I remembered to buy a Double Decker. This delectable confectionery is often thought of as an autumn staple, but its mythical power can be unleashed at any time of year. As soon as there was one in the car we were unstoppable. Rough-legged Buzzards in the gloom, the Grey-bellied Brent after less than a minute of scanning an immense flock of Pink-feet, the Stonechat on view immediately - everything simply fell into place. The Wagtail showed brilliantly - a UK tick. Although there have been loads recently I have felt no urge to twitch any of them, but as a part of a big day out seeing gazillions of birds I didn't mind in the slightest.

So why was it so good? Because it was refreshing. I have not done any UK birding like this for simply ages and it felt really good, just like birding abroad. My last visits to Norfolk, Suffolk and coastal Essex were all in 2016, and very simply I was ready again.

Here's to 2020.

Essex from above

I may have mentioned this, but I quite like flying. I like it a lot actually. It would be odd if I did not given how much I travel on planes, but believe it or not I did actually go through a period of not liking it at all, which rather limited my horizons for quite a few years. I got over it, and these days I travel quite a bit, for leisure (and not just birds!) and also for work. The work trips are not that exciting if I'm honest, short hops up to Glasgow from east London, but this means that I fly over a lot of the UK and I get a real kick out of doing that as if the weather is amenable I get to landscape watch, to try and pick out exactly where we are simply by reference to the landscape or the coastline. And of course I relate this to birds I've seen - all perfectly normal.... this is probably why I frequently get an empty seat next to me, lest I start boring a fellow passenger to death. Anyway, I know the UK well enough, in places, to do this quite accurately, and no more so than the Essex coast which has many features which are easy to identify. Occasionally the London City-bound aircraft route out over the east and then fly more or less straight up the Thames Estuary, and this is a great opportunity to stare out of the window.

My flight home this past Thursday was one of these, and sat in my favourite seat, 2D, which is on the starboard (right) side, I had simply lovely views of Essex from about the Naze down. I gazed out transfixed as we flew over Clacton Pier, and then at Colne Point where the Dotterel was, followed by Cudmore Grove where I finally saw my first Essex YBW. Then I realised that I had my phone to hand and took a series of snaps as we gradually descended into London. So here is a short pictorial history of the final moments (in a good, non-disastery way!) of BA flight 8729.

The Dengie. Bradwell, where I saw my very first Rosefinch, is at the top right as the coast bends round into the Blackwater Estuary. The fingers you can see heading inland on the far side are Tollesbury Fleet, with Mersea Island to the far right

The end of the River Crouch, with Hanningfield Reservoir in the distance. We would have been about over Rayleigh at this point, approaching Basildon.

The lower half is Vangé and Wat Tyler, scene of recent Red-footed Falcon and Black-winged Stilt happiness. The urban sprawl in the upper half is Basildon. Mmmmmm.

Getting a lot lower now, this is probably about Orsett whilst heading in over Grays.

And here's a landmark everyone knows, the M25, with Belhus Park to the left and South Ockenden to the right

Ford at Dagenham. We used to pick up lovely new cars from near the square white building to the right of the creek. Alas those days are now over!

Barking Bay to the north, Thamesmead to the south. You can't help feeling that soon the two sides could be indistinguishable.

Nearly there now, here's the bottom of the Roding, the river that borders my patch in Wanstead. Beckton sewage works is to the left, you don't realise quite how massive it is until you see it from above.

And finally down on 27, parking at the eastern-most slot which is mostly used for the JFK service. Half an hour home.

Back on the Essex tick trail

Choices, choices. Cornwall for a Pelihonk? Maybe Lincolnshire for a Broad-billed Sandpiper? My current bogey bird but I wanted to stay relatively close to home today, so birding in Essex was the decision after a tough week at work. No big distances, places I know, and some good birds. I had a leisurely morning before leaving the house at around eight to head over to Abberton, currently hosting a Franklin's Gull. News from Adrian first thing that it was still there convinced me that I was making the right call, and I arrived shortly before nine at Layer-de-la-Haye causeway in a biting wind - what happened to May? The gloves came out quite quickly, and as soon as another guy turned up with a woolly hat I felt able to put mine on too. No sign of the gull, and I was soon joined by Lee W and elements of the Suffolk massive, picking out a few Black Terns and an Arctic. After a while it became clear that the line of people on the reserve were on the bird, so we cracked and paid the entry donation, hurrying down towards the hide to be rewarded with fine scope views of this super-rare visitor. Yeah, just a gull, utterly rubbish in all respects other than being an Essex tick. Woo! 

It's the darker one with the obvious eyering. Spectacular some might say.

I love Essex ticks, they're almost the best kind of ticks. Home county and all that, bettered only by garden and patch ticks. But wait, what is this news from Vange? Black-winged Stilts? The ones I've missed in Essex repeatedly for years on end? Well I don't mind if I do. Bade farewell to the guys and jumped back in the car for a rather long trip back west. The Stilts showed well on arrival. Essex tick #267, and I spent a bit of  time attempting a some photos without much success. Good to catch up with Steve A, one of my Tropicbird companions from a few years ago...., and also year tick Monkey in shorts.

Mrs

With news that James had found a Red-crested Pochard on the patch, the first for quite some time, it was time to leave the Stilts and head home. I'd got a couple of miles when my phone went off - it was Steve who I'd just been with. "Red-footed Falcon at Vange!". As in the Vange I'd just left? Yes, that Vange. Well done that man, and thanks for the call! Cue a quick U-turn and a rapid return to the marsh where I picked up the Falcon immediately. It showed fantastically for the next hour or so that I stayed, and pulled in quite a crowd including Adrian all the way from Abberton, as well as Shaun and Monkey (who had also left but not got further than the sausage aisle at Tescos).

I took far too many photos of the bird, most complete rubbish as manual focusing was required, but a few turned out acceptable. I didn't really want to leave but James' duck was calling quite loudly with Nick off patch chasing some cuckoo or other.... Straight to Heronry and there it was in all its finery. I snuck up on it from the south side for a quick pap, but with a friend's 40th early evening I had to get back. It capped a fine day's birding in Essex though, with several really good birds that I got excellent views of. I should really do this more often!

HRH RCP V

Captain Cook discovers Wanstead

Yesterday was one of the most enjoyable days I can recall for a long time (PS, no birds...). It's Alistair Cook's benefit year, and as he's an Essex cricketer, and several of the Essex side came from the Wanstead Ranks, he brought the team over to Overton Drive for a morning of coaching the kids (my three included), a T20 match vs Wanstead in the afternoon, and then a gala dinner in the evening. We only attended the first two, but were there for something like eight hours - for a man of his stature to give up his Saturday and come out and inspire all these kids is simply phenomenal - and he was so nice too, so normal, no sign of the pressure he must be under. And hats off too to the Essex team that contained the likes of Bopara, Foster, Topley and Panesar, they were all brilliant with the children, and really that's what the day was all about. 

The match itself was won by Essex on almost the final ball, and it was perhaps the least competitive cricket I've ever seen, and all the more fun for it! One of the Wanstead guys had won an auction to keep wicket for Essex, and had a whale of a time. A ten year old kid came out and bowled an over at some point and won man-of-the-match for doing so, Kishen Velani (local boy done good, played for England under-19s) tonked Monty for four sixes in a row, and Cook himself was the victim of a fantastic one-handed catch out at deep mid-wicket.

Wanstead Cricket Club has been superb from the moment we joined it some years ago. It is made up pretty much entirely of volunteers that give up their time to coach the kids, and the whole setup and atmosphere is all you could wish from a local club, and we are fantastically lucky to have it on our doorstep. All three of ours go there every week, let's hope they stay interested for a long time. Especially if it means that I can have great days out too!

Captain Cook asks my child a question - will she bat or bowl. It takes her an eternity to answer. 

Cooky and Trevor, head of Junior Cricket

Monty takes a wicket and goes off to high-five the entire crowd!

James Foster

Nick Browne on his way to a fine score

Ravi

 

The centre of attention!

Out and About

After a week cooped up some fresh air and shutter abuse seemed a reasonable tonic, so I toddled off to Shoeburyness at first light hoping that the female Long-tailed Duck and Common Scoter might still be present on the lake at Gunner's Park - scene of my OBP triumph (successful twitch) a couple of months ago. Happily they were both still there, and, with patience, sore knees, and a cold, wet bottom, showed extremely well. What was not quite so wonderful was the abysmal light throughout my visit, and a near continual soft mizzle. Oh for a bit of sunshine, but I guess you take what you can get in these situations, and without wishing to bore you overly, it's amazing what can be done with high ISO speeds these days. Interestingly they stuck together the entire time, mostly very closely indeed, which I gather is causing untold problems for the Church of England.

After three hours of happy pappage (more of which can be seen here), I decided I was cold and had had enough, and so toddled back down the A13 to civilisation. Passing Rainham I noticed, illegally, that the Ross's Goose was back. Not that I think it has a snowgoose's chance in hell of getting on the list, but you can never be too careful, and in any event I've never seen one, plastic or otherwise. And very cute and dinky it was too, albeit distantly from the sea wall, and in rather dodgy and highly undesirable company. To be clear, I didn't meet Dick until back near Aveley Bay car park; the goose was with Greylags. Much year-tickage also occurred, with my first 2013 Wigeon, Little Egret and so on - in fact there was a bit of that at Shoeburyness as well now I come to think of it. A Kestrel near the Serin Mound was fairly confiding - I can see myself going back on a sunny day.

Finished up back on the patch, where in a daring mission of high skill and lightning-fast reactions, I found both Firecrest and Nuthatch in Bush Wood, and didn't get mugged.

Desert Wheatear at Abberton

I've been crossing my fingers for two things this week as I've been sat mulling the difficulties of Basle 3 Capital and other exciting diversions.

1) That the Desert Wheatear at Abberton would stay until this morning.

It did. And...

2) That it would show well.

It didn't.

It didn't show well. Rather it showed amazingly. Superbly. Superlatively. I didn't exactly have it to myself, it has to be said, but it was one of those ridiculous birds that hops between people, walks within your minimum focus distance, and generally wonders what all the fuss is about. I love birds like this. And that it should be a type of Wheatear, well, from my perspective it doesn't get much better really. Actually it does, as it's an Essex tick for me, and a pretty monster one at that, with only three in the last hundred years or something.

 

Mmmmm, Wheatears....There could easily be Wheatear overload today, but I will refrain here, and instead post a wider selection on www.justbirdphotos.com a little later on. And finally, some of you may have noticed that the little counter at the bottom of this page just notched over a minor landmark. Maybe you didn't notice? I did, as all blog authors do. A stat! A visitor! Somebody read what I wrote! A quarter of a million? Even discounting me logging on fifty times a day to see what the statcounter says, that's an awful lot of people. Many of them disappointed I expect. "What the? I clicked on 'Tits' dammit!!!"

 

 

Essex Birds

Wanstead is in Essex, and that's where I started today. Nick and I were nice and early on the patch, but no goodies were produced. I had palpitations early on when I saw two distant flying waterfowl and immediately issued the joyful shout of "Brent Geese!", a long-awaited patch tick. My initial joy turned to consternation though, when after some proper squinting I felt that the rear-most bird was definitely lighter in tone that the lead bird. Although I'd been certain that the first bird was a Brent, the apparent difference between the two raised all sorts of questions, and very sadly I've binned them. Although generally very low, I do have some standards.

Thinking about it, Brent Goose is a good candidate for my most-wanted bird for the patch. It's entirely possible, is big and easy to spot, which is always a plus, and now is the right time of year. That said, there are many others. Marsh Harrier and Short-eared Owl both rank highly, as do Smew and Bewick's Swan. I've decided on my most-wanted for the garden. That's going to be Little Egret from now until I get one. It's still a hard bird away from the Roding, but I'm close enough to the Walthamstow-Thames flight path to be in with a chance. Other possibilities for the garden are Firecrests on an away day, and perhaps also one of the seven Egyptian Geese which seem to have taken up residence on the Basin, just a short flight away.

Why is Alexandra Lake filled with algal blooms and infested with rats? No idea.

Wanstead held little else, six Teal on Alex probably the highlight. A quick grill of the gulls produced nothing remarkable, though I still think that with the number of Common Gulls we get, Ring-billed has to be a serious possibility. I suppose that could be the new most-wanted... A group of Long-tailed Tits did not want their photograph taken, and an out-of-control dog jumped all over me. The second time it jumped all over me, I nudged it away with my leg. Oh dear, in the eyes of the owner that counted as kicking the dog, and that was well out of order. It's great isn't it? A dog jumps all over me and all of a sudden it's my problem. Yes, that sounds fair to me. Here's an alternative suggestion though, dog-owner. Keep your stupid f***ing dog under control or on a f***ing lead, or don't f***ing bring it to Wanstead f***ing Flats. Or am I out of order again? I tell you, the day I get a sincere apology from a dog-owner, or even just an apology, will be the day I..., the day I..., well I just don't know. It's so massively unlikely it will never ever happen.

Moving on, we moved on. To real Essex, with additional passengers in the shape of Paul W and Muffin. Fingringhoe to be precise, where we spent an hour not seeing a Glossy Ibis for Paul's Essex list that he does now keep (it would be a great deal quicker to list the counties for which Paul does not keep a list. Herefordshire I think.), which was in fact there all along. The next stop was Mersea, where I quickly added a perfectly genuine and acceptable Red-breasted Goose to the Essex List I definitely don't keep, and added Black Brant for the day when that becomes tickable.This was a life tick for Muffin, and he was so delighted that he made some patterns in the mud with his trainers. A Wigeon we had been watching and thinking was a little odd then died in front of us, a nice lesson in the natural way of things for junior. This air of finality caused us to surmise that the day was basically over, so we went home.



What do you mean you can't see it?



Flocking in Essex

Flock flock flock flock flock. Every January I try and make a winter visit to the Essex coast for some winter birding. Last year I went at the beginning of the month, where if you remember I knelt in a turd. No such poor luck today, but the birds were equally good. Once again Bradders took his rally car, and our chief scarecrow-spotter Hawky made up the team. Today was all about flocks.



Started on the Blackwater estuary, where we could find no interesting Grebes or Divers, but a flock of over two hundred Golden Plover were extremely nice, and the sound of their wings as they flew in tight formation was pretty damn cool. Heaps of Brents here too, and some flocks of Goldeneye in mid-channel.

A quick stop at Braxted Park where the regular flock of Hawfinches were seen, or at least some of them - we counted ten in the tall trees just within the golf course. A great bird to see, and an Essex tick for me, but a real shame they are so scarce. Our next flocks were near the Strood, at the causeway across [to] Mersea. Masses of Dunlin on the falling tide, but best of all a wintering flock of Lapland Buntings in a weedy field. We counted around 30 birds, and bins etc were unnecessary as the flock wheeled around overhead giving the classic "peew" and "brrrrrrrrr" calls. Easily the largest number I've ever seen together, including Shetland, and another Essex tick. I was on fire!



We tried the estuary from Mersea for Divers again, but all I could do was string a Cormorant until Bradders noticed. Boring!  We gave up on the sea and headed to Abberton, where we encountered eight distant Smew, but much nearer six each of Tundra Bean and Pink-footed Geese. I can never recall either seeing birds this close, or seeing them swimming on the water, and I can only think of one time when I've seen them together, so this was very instructive. In a nutshell, Brown and Orange vs Silver and Pink. Goose identification, done.



A distant Ringtail Hen Harrier at the same site was a bonus Essex Tick, and we also twitched a burger van with notable success. Meanwhile I missed a Goosander on the Perch Pond back in Wanstead which was a bit gripping, but I did have an unlikely drake flying across the Flats a couple of years ago so I am not too gutted, and I can spend tomorrow looking for it.

A quick note on not year listing

Going really really well. I'm on 111, which I'd reached by 3rd of January in both 2009 and 2010. So far then, this is easily my worst (or best, depending on how you look at it) performance in recent years. I have not caved into adding it onto Bubo, which might induce competitive urges, and I only added it up for the purposes of this post (after having read the one I linked to above, and got curious). So far, so good.

Sea-watch South-East

Whilst the good folk at Sea-watch South-west might fall over laughing at our "haul" yesterday, in a local context the river was phenomenal. And I missed half the birds and still thought it was amazing!

Thoughtful parent that I am, I considered that a visit to Rainham where I sat on the balcony and looked at the river for several hours would perhaps not appeal to the children. This ridiculous behaviour cost me 4 Sandwich Terns, 3 Little Terns, 4 Black Terns, a Great Skua and a Common Scoter. As soon as the 3 Little Terns came up mid-morning, that was it. I bundled the children into the car and off we went, hoping that I hadn't missed the action. The filthy weather was clearing; I figured I had probably buggered it up.

I needn't have worried. The tide was still rising and the passage of sea-birds still strong. I guess the theory is that provided the wind is right and the weather murky, the birds will be forced into the estuary at that point, and even it clears up later, once they're in, they're in, and struggle to reorient themselves eastwards. I cannot remember seeing so many Common Terns at Rainham before, probably my personal tally was around 200, and Dom, who had been there since the start, had more like 300.

Likewise I had seen a grand total of 2 Sandwich Terns in London ever, and saw a further 9 or so go past, and missed about 6 more. Bird of the day from my perspective was a superb juvenile Kittiwake that went by at around midday. An immense London bird by all accounts, and certainly a tick for me, and not one I had expected to get any time soon.

And the children I hear you ask? Well they were OK. Who I am kidding? They were brilliant, stunning children. We were there for five hours and only in the final hour did the cries of "when can we go home?" start to appear. I was helped by the fact that there is a small playground directly in front of the balcony, and and the ready availability of sausage rolls in the cafe. Nonetheless they were fantastically well behaved, hardly any disputes, and just played for five hours straight. The previous four days had been more or less constant rain, so perhaps they were just pleased to finally be outside and running around? They are now having a beach weekend on the Isle of Wight, which should heal the scars.

Meanwhile I have been birding. All day. A funny old day spent dashing between Rainham and various other Thames estuary sites, but ended up with two year ticks, two Essex ticks, and a bvd on my list converted to a seen properly. This latter bird was a very nice female Kentish Plover at East Tilbury. The only other I had ever seen was a distant dot off Canvey that perhaps I should not have counted, though it was the correct dot. I feel much better now.

There was also a juvenile Red-necked Phalarope conveniently at Vange, and I finished the day at Wakering Stairs where for the past week there has, and continues to be, an Osprey sat on a post. Despite lugging round a large and heavy camera for the entire day, I didn't use it once. Instead I am treating you to phone-scoping. Rarely will you see a better photograph of an Osprey I'll wager.