Interesting Rainham Arco

After a pointless bit of Saturday morning river watching from the balcony at Rainham Marsh, in weather conditions not forecast by the BBC - where the best bird was a Brambling on the nearby feeders. I headed towards the wooded area of the reserve in search of migrants - Redwings, Song Thrushes and Robins were plentiful. As I followed the wooden boardwalk through the scrub I picked up a plain looking Acrocephalus Warbler in one of the small trees...mmm - an Acro at this time of year, away from the reeds is always worth investigating further, so for the next ten minutes I watched the bird busily feeding within the small tree, in which it occasionally came to the outer branches, allowing me to grab a few images.

Whilst watching the bird several features stood out for me:

• The overall rusty warm toned appearance to the upper parts - best shown in the second image.
• Short, stubby wings - giving the bird a longer tailed look.
• Soft looking facial features - more Phylo and less Acro like at times.
• Cocked/raised tail when perched - shown in image four.
• Light silvery grey leg colour.

The wing length/primary projection and leg colour would rule out Marsh Warbler and I did hear the bird 'chrrr' a couple of times which does point towards Reed Warbler over Blyth's Reed Warbler but given the time of year and recent weather conditions and the difficulty of separating these two in the field you just never know!

Any thoughts or comments are most welcome.