Common Seal: Thames off East India Dock Basin, March 2011
After spending many hours staking out the western reedbed at the basin in an attempt to add the wintering Water Rail to my yearlist I finally connected with it at dawn this morning, no waiting, no fuss, it was just standing at the front of the reeds preening; apart from that it was fairly quiet, the first singing Chiffchaff of the year was in the ecology park along with a second bird that was calling incessantly; they were in an area of the park that held no wintering birds so they could have been the first migrants of the year. Wildfowl included five Shelduck, the female Pintail briefly, 107 Common Teal and 59 Tufted Duck, three Redshank and two Common Sandpipers were at Bow Creek and at least five Pied Wagtails and three Linnets were foraging on the Pura Foods peninsula; an added bonus came in the form of a Common Seal in the Thames just off the basin, the second I have seen here, it caught at least two flatfish, probably Dabs; my personal mammal list at the Lower Lea is not a long one: Pipistrelle sp (probably Common), Red Fox, Common Seal, Bottle-nosed Dolphin, Grey Squirrel and Brown Rat; I'm thinking of investing in a Longworth trap to see if I can catch some of the smaller insectivores and rodents that ought to occur in the various habitats of the Lower Lea.
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