Rainham Marshes RSPB October 14th

I had been to a Peregrine site at dawn and decided to pop into Rainham on the way back, with all the Lapland Buntings showing, I thought that Rainham was a good bet.

I started at the sea wall, straight away there were Ring Necked Parakeets coming over from Kent, I ended up with 29 by the time I had reached Aveley Bay, Tide was low, met Andy and he pointed out the Common Seal. It was hauled out on the mud resting, only the 2nd ever Common Seal I had seen in the Inner Thames if I remember correctly, the other was at Barking 3 years back. The Gulls definitely found it interesting.

Common Seal in the Bay

 Previous to this I had scoped the Kent side, no majors bur 7 Ringed Plover were good to see, the Essex side of the foreshore held 3 Rock Pipits and around 30 Redshank, Water Pipit will hopefully arrive soon, usually around the start of November.

The Bay held hundreds of Gulls, amongst them 3 adult Yellow Legged, try as I might I cant get excited about these, it has got to have a hook beak and talons. Also in the Bay was a single Bar Tailed Godwit, 11 Black Tailed Godwits and a single Curlew.

Black Tailed Godwits feeding on the mud

 Decided to go round the Reserve despite the disturbance of ongoing works, will be interesting to see it all when it is completed.

A walk round to the Woodland via the Target Pools (dry) and Aveley Pools produced the following

Chiffchaff

2 Sparrowhawks – male and female

Linnet – 60 a flock feeding over the Targets

Water Rail – 4 calling, all avoided the camera despite my best efforts

Cetti’s Warbler – 7 calling

Pintail – 9 seen on the Pools, the drakes looking very smart

Common Snipe – 1

Black Tailed Godwit – 3 on the Pools

Good numbers of Tufted, Pochard and Shoveler present.

Nailed a Goldcrest in the woodland which I needed for a year tick, total now 147.No Brambling seen but many Chaffinches and Redwings in the woodland.
Not up on my Newts but came across this little chap below walking across the path, unsure as to its identity.

Newt species

Apologies for the photo's, typical english weather unfortunately.

Common Seal with Gull onlookers