Pochard and Oystercatcher new for the year

There has been some really fine weather over the last few days, but Saturday dawned with a very dense cold fog enveloping the patch, a reminder that we are still in March and gloves are not yet an optional extra. Gary arrived with the news that the fog was restricted to the river and warm sunshine was to be had a scant mile to the north but we both elected to stay on site until the mist had burnt off and we were rewarded with a male Pochard on the Thames, the first that either of us can remember on the river. The rest of the days haul was fairly pedestrian, Common Teal numbers continue to fall with just 70 counted today along with 35 Tufted Duck and two pairs of Shelduck, one of which was displaying. A solitary Common Sandpiper constituted the wader interest, it looks like we've seen our last wintering Redshank and apart from the outside chance of a passage bird, that's it until October. Passerine interest was provided by a singing Song Thrush, three singing Chaffinch and a pair of Linnets. By 11 o'clock the mist had burnt off completely and the basin started to fill up with people armed with football toting brats who had obviously mistaken the nature reserve for a park, time for us to leave. Sunday dawned clear but cold and the first thing that was obvious on arrival at the basin was the that the Long-tailed Tit nest in the copse has been completely wrecked, closer inspection revealed that a lot of the spring growth in the copse has been trampled; Lea Valley Regional Park has taken out so much of the undergrowth here that a mentally challenged chav family could easily mistake it for a football pitch; oh for the halcyon days of the London Docklands Development Corporation, at least they did nothing. My mood lightened a little with the arrival of the first two vocal Oystercatchers of the year on the Millennium Dome mudflats, Common Sandpiper numbers were up to six on Bow Creek but this could have been a conservative count as it was made at low tide, at least some of these birds have to be migrants; Common Teal numbers were also up with 83 counted this morning other wildfowl included two Shelduck and 29 Tufted Duck Other notables included two Stock Doves flying north-west, an impressive gathering of over 40 Carrion Crows on the reedbed pylon, a singing Song Thrush and four Linnets. Just like yesterday the flow of human traffic increased with the rising mercury, so I made the short trip downstream to Gallions Reach where I was confronted with thew astonishing sight of around 280 Black-tailed Godwits, most of them in summer plumage, feeding on a rising tide, at least two Curlew were among them along with some 80 Redshank and over 50 Shelduck. It's been a slow year for migrants so far but within the space of 15 minutes I had my first Swallow heading east before gaining height and disappearing inland over the Roding flood barrier, my first March record and the first time I have ever seen Swallow before Sand Martin, and a superb male Northern Wheatear  picked up sitting shrike-like at the top of a Birch tree.