A Couple of Hours in the Purfleet Hide at Rainham Marshes

28th January 2026

A lovely sunny day to settle in the Purfleet Hide and enjoy the views over the scrape with a cup of tea and some breakfast. The mere was like a mill pond which gave many of the usual suspects some amazing reflections. First up close to the hide were a fantastic drake Teal, a pair of Wigeon and a drake Shelduck.

The drake Shovelers are now ready for the breeding season to commence.................

......................as are the drake Pintails.

I always find Pintails very photogenic, especially on calm water.

Just look at the colours on the wing!!!

And when they are bathing just wait until the end for the wing flap to dry their wings.

And then there are always the geese which cause such a commotion when they land.

It was low tide so waders were virtually non-existant except for a few Lapwings and some Snipe.

The Snipe are usually on the islands right in front of the hide but are sometimes hard to find as some of them hunker down after feeding during the night. Initially only two were on view but then a further four emerged.

But the most noticeable thing today was the arrival of the winter thrushes. This winter there have been virtually no winter thrushes in the south-east, at least up until the middle of January, presumably due to a bumper berry crop in Scandinavia. Well now it would appear they have demolished the crop and have had to come further south, and for the first time this winter I saw a few hundred, mainly Fieldfare, around the woodland area.

As seems to be characteristic of newly arrived birds they were very flighty and even lifting a pair of binoculars at 50 yards would be enough to spook them, and therefore I only managed a couple of distant shots. When they settle in and start feeding they will be far more approachable.

Well, a beautiful day at Rainham and also good to have a catch-up with Russell Sheriff and Tom Bell.