A Late Start

I got up late this morning,11am in fact,despite going to bed well before midnight.This is partly due to Isla deciding to wake us up at 1am and then proceeding to keep us up till after 4am,at one point i even went to Rainham Tescos to get some teething gel/powder but it was shut,although i did hear a Tawny Owl from my front garden,it sounded like it was coming from the trees next to the Optomist Pub.I then ventured to Gallows Corner Tescos but that was also shut and then tried the 24 hour tesco garage/multimart but that is now a 6-12 multimart and was also shut,so i headed home to find Isla smiling at me,obviously over the worst of her teething fit.I climbed into bed,only awaking every now and then to check on the nipper.I did set my alarm for 8am so when i woke up at 11am i was a bit shocked but thought i had just slept through the alarm due to the disturbance throughout the night,it turns out that apple i phones alarms are not working so the fact i lost 3 hours birding is those twats faults.
Once awake i decided to go to Belhus Country Park in search of the Marsh tits that have been present for the last month or so,also to try to tick off another few woodland species,on arriving i parked near the visitor centre and looked around the feeders but apart from the odd Great & blue tits there wasn't too much there,certainly no Marsh Tits,so i decided to go for a walk into the Woodlands,after 30 or so seconds i was rewarded with my first Nuthatch of the year,the first of 4 in the woods,soon after i had a treecreeper and then 2 goldcrest,high up in the trees with a tit flock.I then strolled on seeing a jay,wren and a coal tit and then came to another feeding station where i came across the 2 Marsh Tits that have been seen.I decided from there to carry on through the woods onto belhus chace as its a good place for Woodpecker/thrushes etc and straight away i had a lovely green woodpecker and then a Mistle Thrush in the bushes.Then i decided to head towards the few lakes/pits where i was a bit dissapointed to see that the majority of the water was actually ice.Overhead i had a Lesser black backed gull,grey wagtail and then 40 siskins,all new for my year list.Apart from the odd Tufted duck/coot & moorhen there was nothing about so i decided to walk through to the scrape about half a mile or so away,when i got there it looked a good decision as it was ice free.Straight away i latched on to a Red Crested Pochard,which is a site first for me.Also seen were Pochards,Tufted Ducks,Moorhen,coots,wigeon(around 150),Greylag geese,canada geese and the usual Ruddy Duck.I then ventured back to the Car park happy with my days birding but decided to have one last look in the woods at the Marsh tit,once again they didn't dissapoint.
After this i decided to have a quick drive around the lanes,briefly stopping at the paddocks to the East of the Ingrebourne Valley,getting my Ingrebourne list up and running,albeit with only 24 species so far,its a start.A quick trip to Bonnetts wood just before dark on the off chance of maybe picking up an owl of some sort gave me a solitary kestrel.Still not a bad days birding,more of the same tomorrow i think,still a few more species i think i can get at Belhus,and you never know what could turn up overnight!!!
Below is a picture of an adult Breeding Male Red Crested Pochard,lovely looking bird although the one i saw had more striking features