Visibility: 0%

Rainham sounded like such an attractive option after all the ice and snow bringing some beautiful rarities or scarcities to the marshes. So I headed out early on Monday morning and despite central London being relatively clear, east London and Essex looked a lot colder, foggier and were still covered in snow and ice. Undeterred, I confidently pulled up (alone) into the car park and carefully slid across the ice to the visitors' centre. The trails were open!! Fantastic news!!

So off I trekked, in a clockwise direction, unusually for me. It was bitterly cold so I spent a lot of this time walking, also as it was so foggy, there wasn't much point looking out further than about 100 feet. However, I got to the first bridge (1 minute's walk) and there was some pinging. Lo and behold, 2 male bearded tits hopped out under the bridge and proceeded to feed a mere 6-8 feet away from me for about 20 seconds. Superb views that encouraged me to continue my walk! Several snipe were flying about and feeding out in the open fields, and I kept getting persistently awesome close-up views of wrens. A skylark flew up and over (identified by its call, oh yes!) and reed buntings were flying about calling quite a lot too (but also perching for long enough for me to identify the things). A lovely male stonechat was very showy near the new hide, seeming quite unafraid of big ol' me. Whilst enjoying the stonechat, I also observed a small number of linnets further along, and a lovely female marsh harrier being mobbed by a couple of carrion crows, scaring off all the lapwing. The marsh harrier is a first for Rainham for me.

From the new hide, there was pretty much nothing to be seen as all the water had turned to ice and the only birds were a long, long way away nearer the other hide. However, looking out to the west, I saw a lovely fox hunting across the marshes, making the lapwing look even more nervous!

A bit further round I reached the small area of open water and sat down, got out the scope, and started scanning. Gulls of the black-headed, great black-backed, lesser black-backed, common and herring variety were all there (I'm getting better), along with such waterfowl as tufted duck, shoveler, mallard, gadwall, wigeon, pochard, and a male pintail. Countless moorhens and coots as well!

A ring-necked parakeet flew over (they're getting more and more usual, I swear) near the car park, and I, of course, saw countless redwings, a single fieldfare, a great-spotted woodpecker and a song thrush. But still no waxwings... despite someone seeing one there later that same day... grrr.