Birding December 26th to 28th

From December 26th to 28th I managed a fairly comprehensive two hour visit on each date, typically the highlight came in the last minute of my last visit when I refound Gary's cracking male Black Redstart feeding in trees on the southern side of the copse at East India Dock Basin; the rest of the stuff was generally par for the course, I had one Chiffchaff on each date, the bird on the 26th was giving the usual contact call but on the other two dates it (or another) was giving the variant call which sounded a bit like House Sparrow to me; there was a passage of Redwing on all three dates with c30 north on the 26th, 14 south and 100 west on the 27th and 31 west on the 28th; I couldn't find a Little Grebe on the 26th but I had two on the 27th (including one on the lower Lea), and one on the 28th; wildfowl included two Shelduck on the 27th and three on the 28th; 233 Teal on the 26th, c290 on the 27th and 291 on the 28th, the peak count of Mallard was 113 on the 28th and the Tufted Duck flock fluctuated between 29 on the 26th and 14 on the 27th; Redshank numbers were fairly consistent, 23 on the 26th, 29 on the 27th and 27 on the 28th, but there was no sign of the Common Sandpiper last seen by me on December 11th; finally a Jay was feeding in the copse on the 28th and eight Chaffinch, a good local count, were there on the 27th.