The unseasonably mild weather has continued into the new year making for a fairly uneventful visit to the lower Lea. The most obvious species affected by the balmy conditions was Common Teal, usually at this time numbers regularly exceed 300. today I counted just 132 throughout the site. Tufted Duck numbers have also fallen off slightly with 11 present at the basin this morning. The high tides for the next week or so are going to be during the hours of darkness so getting an accurate count of waders is not possible, I had three Redshank and a Common Sandpiper but it's hard to know what the real numbers are due to the mild weather. An adult Yellow-legged Gull was on the Millennium Dome flats with several Great Black-backed Gulls also there and a Herring Gull of the race argentatus was at Bow Creek along with around 160 Black-headed Gulls. A pair of Linnets in the ecology park was the pick of the passerines with just singles of Grey Wagtail, Pied Wagtail and Jay the only others of note. All told I recorded 34 species today, one less than last new years day.
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