I spent several hours on the patch today, mainly trying to nail the identity of a Chiffchaff I found in the copse that was calling like the Siberian form tristis; the bird was incredibly skulking and I could get no plumage details as it kept to deep cover before moving into the inaccessible gardens on the west side of the copse; I returned at regular intervals throughout the day until dusk but had no further sight or sound of the bird. As dusk approached I noticed that a lot of Common Teal were flighting into the basin on a rising tide, the reason for this was a flotilla of narrow boats moving up the Lea and spooking the birds into flight, they didn't, however, bother the Mallards other than to make them swim out into the middle of the creek giving me a good opportunity to count them, halfway through the count I came across six Gadwall, a record site count and perhaps the spillover of birds from the large concentration further upstream mentioned in a previous post; the Mallard count totalled 108 with other duck numbers as follows: seven Shelduck, female Pintail and 16 Tufted Duck; six duck species in all, anything over three is a good day on the Lower Lea. An adult female Peregrine was on the dome and a Scandinavian type Herring Gull was at Bow Creek. Passerines included a good local count of 18 Linnet, one of them singing, a Grey Wagtail and a singing Song Thrush in the ecology park.
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