Well that was Christmas over and done with; two days of food, booze, snoring and 'interesting' TV.... meanwhile back on the ranch! A busy day with over 300 happy punters through the doors on a dull but generally very calm and very, very mild day! At times it felt more like March than a few days away from the New Year.
As such the reserve is still waiting for a winter freeze (and some more water!) but at least the Lapwing are still around but it would appear that the freakishly large Teal flock that appeared mysteriously on Wednesday may have moved on as I never saw the birds on the wing all day despite lots of Peregrine activity. No Black-tailed Godwits came in over the very high tide (I believe they are favouring the Dagenham and Barking riverside areas at the moment) but 20 Curlew were seen along with 18 Ringed Plover. Once again Kittiwakes made it as far as Grays but never got past the QEII bridge and turned round and headed back down river... damn and blast!
The Bearded Tits pereformed very well on the Dragonfly Pools mid day but the light frustrated photographers while Paul Davies from Harlow (sorry but just had to differentiate you from two other Paul Davies visitors!) got a very good shot of one of our scatty Water Pipits on the foreshore while Barry Chandler caught our regular Little Egret foot dabbling!
Water Pipit (will go through ID in a couple of days)
No rodent massacre today but the very high tide did produce a swimming Water Rail , several Brown Rats, at least three Harvest Mice and best of all Annie Jackson found a Water Shrew swimming and diving its way to shore! The corvids seemed to be put off by the presence of a small group of people and there were not casualties witnessed today!
Even more surprising was our first actual sighting of an Otter. We have seen prints before now but never the real thing! It was loafing on the bank near the Shooting Butts Hide before slipping into the water. Fantastic! I have remembered! It was Martin Itter's Otter! Usual opening times for the rest of the week so perhaps see some of you tomorrow. H ;o)