A late afternoon visit on a falling tide

I arrived at East India Dock Basin with barely an hour of daylight remaining thanks to a combination of work and a lengthy detour to Beddington to successfully twitch a 1st-winter Common Crane which takes my London List to 262. Although the recent cold weather had ameliorated somewhat it was immediately obvious that Common Teal numbers were well up on my previous visit so I did a fairly comprehensive count missing out only a couple of the more unproductive areas in the failing light, there were around 280 present, my best count since February. Also on the basin were nine Shelduck, my first since May, eight Tufted Duck, a species which is becoming more difficult here due to the silting up of the basin and four Little Grebe in the usual spot in the north-western corner. As the tide was on the ebb there were no waders in the roost but I did have a Common Snipe which flew high north over the basin, a Lapwing north-east over the ecology park and a Common Sandpiper flying down the Lea, the only other bird of note was a calling Chiffchaff in the ecology park.