Still a lot of snow around and at first I had my doubts about going off the main road and down into the car-park, however it was ok. I parked at the far end and after a quick look at the sightings board my two companions Wendy Brownrigg and Giuseppe Raffa and I went and looked at the car-park pool, noting the usual amount of Dabchick, Pochard, Tufted Duck, Coot and a Great Crested Grebe, I was disappointed not to find the Black-necked Grebe that has been resident for quite a while to show them.
The temperature hovered around the freezing mark and the grey cloud cover was almost 100% as we made our way along the track to Ski Pool, I looked in vain for the three Kingfishers I'd seen at this spot last week, we saw at least the 120 or so Dabchick of last Sunday as well as large numbers of Tufted Duck, Teal, Pochard, Mallard, with good numbers of Pintail ( the drakes are so elegant ), Wigeon, Shelduck, Shoveler and Greater and Lesser Black Backed Gulls. Several female Goldeneye were around with at least one male ( a life tick for Wendy, so she was pleased ! )
A sizeable flock of Avocet and Black tailed Godwit sat in the shallows.
Then on to Flamingo Pool and a couple of hundred Dunlin fed off the mud, with a few Grey Plover and Lapwing interspersed. The best view was of lovely a Greenshank doing it's darting-chasing feeding chest high in the water. As to be expected Redshank were all around. It was nice to see the return of Chaffinch, Dunnock, Great and Blue Tits as well as Goldfinch.
In a Bramble at the top of Flamingo two Buntings sat beautifully illuminated by the sun which had suddenly burst out, not sure exactly what they were we decided on either Yellowhammer or Reed females.
Then up to the Thames viewpoint it wasn't far from high tide and the lack of birdlife, save for a good number of Meadow Pipits and good close-up scoped view of a Grey Plover, was more than compensated by the misty sun lowering over the Power Station to the West throwing all manner of Yellowy/Orangey Turneresque images at us.
Then time to back track. Plenty of Thrushes accompanied us along the Creek Road. Including a party of 27 Fieldfare, which Giuseppe had specifically wanted to see, so he was pleased as well !
Then on Ski was the highlight of the day, a Kingfisher landed on a nearby bush and sat there staring into the water giving us superb view of it's electric blueness until several minutes later off it flew.
Also seen were Mute Swans, Curlew, Cormorant, Woodpigeon, Magpie, Crows and Pied Wagtail.
An excellent end to a very entertaining 4 hours and all for free.
Our thanks to David Saunders for this report