Rainham or Bust

Just a quick entry before i set down to watch Leeds United aka Dirty Leeds V Arsenal on the box tonight,not having Sky Sports its nice to see a bit of live footy on the tele,especially the mighty Gunners.
Popped down to Rainham after i had been to the Doctors,who have assured us the Nipper is fine,best to check! She has actually perked up this afternoon,actually she has been a right handful since i got home,tearing everything in site,the other night she tore a page out of my Collins Bird Guide,naughty little rascal.
Anyway,back to Rainham,was a nice sunny afternoon and on arrival we was informed of some white fronted geese,we checked from the centre and there were a couple of birds way out next to some canada geese,there were 2 that looked like white fronts but as i found out sunday there are greylags with white front,from that distance we couldnt be sure,we went around anti clockwise,starting off around the woodland area where we had a lovely female Blackcap along with the usual tits & finches and the odd thrush.Moving round we had good views over the reserve and there were some very skittish birds,Graham had a Merlin but i didn't get onto it quick enough but it must of been as at that point the birds were going mental and no Peregrine around.Starling numbers were in the Thousands,many on the Electricity Wires.We headed to the New hide where we spent an hour or so watching 19 Ringed Plover,Lapwing,Teal,Wigeon etc.The geese we saw from the hide were Greylags with their White front Gear on,canada geese and possible Pink foot but i couldn't get a good enough view on it although the bill looked ok,thats about all i could see to ID it.
We decided to head back via the seawall but one last scan over Aveley Flash produced a Female Stonechat,my first Stonechat of the year,they seem somewhat scarce at Rainham this winter.Checking the Thames on the way back just produced the usual gulls with a few Redshank on the other side.
We went into the visitor centre where i jumped on a slice of chocolate cake,job done,then i went home,or at least that was the plan,driving past Bonnetts Wood and it was still light was an opportunity too good to turn down so i decided to have a mooch about for 45 minutes,unfortunatly it more or less produced nothing,no Sodding owls once again,may try again tomorrow,until then got a difficult decision to make,Saturday Hornchurch are away at Carshalton but there is a birding trip to North Norfolk with Northern Harrier,American Wigeon,shorelarks,twite etc etc etc etc & etc on the menu,i know where i think i will be going and its nowhere near Sarf London...