Belligerent Peregrines in border dispute

Common Teal and Tufted Duck numbers were up on yesterday, 151 and 41 respectively and a single Mute Swan on the Thames was new for the year; the only other wildfowl of note were two Canada geese flying high west and five Shelduck. Two male Peregrines provided some excitement mid morning as they indulged in some low-level dogfighting over the ecology park, screaming at each other in rage and predictably putting everything else to flight; one of them eventually landed on a pylon still calling agitatedly whilst the other circled, gained height, drifted off south and was seen to land on the Millennium Dome. The second year tick of the day was a nice adult Yellow-legged Gull on the Millennium flats along with a mixed bag of around 600 gulls of the five common species. The only passerines of note were two singing Song Thrushes and a silent Chiffchaff in the copse at the basin. A brief return late afternoon produced 12 Redshank and three Common Sandpipers in the high tide roost.