With no sign of "our" rough-legged buzzard since the Bank Holiday Monday and with the gale force winds of the ensuing few days, the news of a bird on Saturday at Northward Hill reserve made me think that it was likely to be the Elmley bird relocating a bit further west. Venturing over there on Sunday, I was met with the news that there had in fact been two rough-legs seen that morning. One (a juvenile) had headed off in an easterly direction and, after a bit of a wait, the 2nd bird popped up on a fence post out from the Marshland Viewpoint. Scrutiny revealed that this was also a "text book" juvenile, with a pale head, single diffuse bar on the tail tip, lots of pale feather tips on the scapulars and an obvious pale panel on the upperwing at the base of the primaries. So not the Elmley bird after all. Other raptors seen from the viewpoint included another 3 common buzzards, 2 marsh harriers, a couple of sparrowhawks & a female merlin. Having gone that far west, before I returned to Elmley, I detoured to our reserve at Shorne Marshes, near Gravesend. Shorne Marshes is the western-most block of significant grazing marsh habitat in the North Kent Marshes and was "my" reserve before I moved over to Elmley. So I like to pop in from time to time to see what's happening. Most of the reserve is covered by the template of the Metropolitan Polices live firing range, so public access is restricted to the public rights of way that go either side of (& at one point cross) the reserve. In common with Elmley, the reserve was quite dry, but some of the marshy areas close to the shooting range produced a few snipe, as well as a couple of jack snipe. The latter are regular autumn arrivals in North Kent (although fiendishly difficult to see), but have usually moved on by this time of year when their chosen areas of marsh get ice-bound. Not this year though. Additionally, there were a couple of bearded tits in the small reedbed area and at dusk, a small flock of corn buntings flew over, on their way to roost.
Returning to Elmley, I discovered that "our" rough-legged buzzard had re-appeared (apparently, it had wandered off to Capel Fleet for at least Saturday) and other sightings included merlin and a little stint, again roosting on the Flood.