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There is a lot of activity at Elmley Marshes at the moment. The drive down to the car park is fantastic with close views of displaying Lapwing and Redshanks wandering closely along the track. I can confidently say you are very likely to see at least one stunning Yellow Wagtail and if you are sharp eyed...

A friend of mine came over to the island today to do a bit of winter birding. The recent cold snap has frozen the reserve, with the result that most of the bird interest stays outside the seawall on the Swale. As a result, we decided to head elsewhere today. First stop was the beach at Minster, on the...

I've spent the last couple of days fairly intensively scouring the reserve for broods of lapwing chicks. In the end, we found a total of 22 broods, totalling 42 chicks - not great, but better than last year & considering the way the water is disappearing, I'm quite pleased with the total...

Can't believe it's been almost 2 weeks since my last blog - time just seems to zip past these days! Going around the reserve today checking the livestock, there were numerous familiar faces: there's still one spoonbill hanging around the pools east of the Flood, although the strong wind today...

There's probably one question above all others (well maybe apart from "I've found a baby bird. What do I do etc?") that visitors & callers to the reserve ask at this time of year. And that's "Are there any baby avocets we can see from the hides?" Well, I can exclusively...

Decided that I needed a haircut today, so as my hairdresser is in Medway, it seemed rude not to call in at the Medway reserves at Motney Hill on the way back. Pulling my hat tightly down to keep a keen north-easterly breeze from getting to my newly exposed ears, I realised that i had timed my visit just...

It's not every day that I add a new species to my Elmley list (I think you'd have to go back to the May 25th "double-whammy" of black-winged pratincole and hoopoe in 2009. Now that was a day...!); and even less often that I get to use the ever-so-slightly disparaging term for a red...

A thoroughly dismal day on the reseve today: low cloud, drizzle and a nagging northeasterly breeze. But of course, diesel pumps and livestock and other bits & bobs need attention, so we wrapped up warm & ventured out. Not a great day for observing birds of prey - I managed a couple of sightings...

For anyone out there with a penchant for flocks of honkers, Elmley is the place to be at the moment. I am of course referring to geese - not necessarily all wild, but there are a lot here at the moment, both in numbers and varieties. I counted 7 types this afternoon, and possibly missed at least one...

Having missed out on the snow that's been sweeping the country further north, Kent finally got the covering that's been on the cards for a while now. Funnily enough, there was only the one car visited the reserve today: they made it to the carpark, but didn't venture any further...

A change from Elmley today. As part of the ongoing monitoring of important bird populations in the Medway & Swale estuaries, the RSPB carries out bird counts on the Medway that go towards the British Trust for Ornithology's We tland B ird S urvey (WeBS). In order to cover the many off-shore islands...

Yesterday was awful. Wet, windy, yuk. I'd mentally prepared myself for a day in the office catching up with some paperwork, cd player on in the background, kettle on. Nice. And then the phone rang & it was our cattle grazier who wanted to come up to take the calves off for weaning. Did he know...

Dare I say it was almost a bit "samey" on the reserve today? Two little stint, a spotted redshank, a few black-tailed godwit and a green sandpiper on the Flood? Check. Raptors- Peregrine, buzzard, merlin, marsh harrier? Check. Nah! Let's face it - that's a pretty decent days...

The step at Swale hide has been fixed, so we've been able to re-open the hide in time for the weekend. With the high tides early and late in the day, much of the bird activity in terms of waders and wildfowl is found out on the Swale. look out for the increasing numbers of wigeon, pintail & brent...

As usual, the reserve was closed today, it being a Tuesday. The volunteers were once again out on the Flood clearing the islands of vegetation and knocking back the fringing sea club-rush, ready for the winter flooding. As you would expect, no birds were anywhere near where we were working, so it was...

Lapland buntings used to be a regular feature of Elmley in winter, with more or less annual records during the first 25 years from 1975-2000. But the frequency of records has declined recently, perhaps as a result of fewer birders being familiar with their distinctive "ticky-tick teew" flight...

As the highest tide of this series was yesterday, I sort of expected that the wader roost at Wellmarsh hide today wouldn't be quite as good. Funny how things are: there were more waders and a much better variety today. There are increasing numbers of juvenile curlew sandpipers (28) and little stint...

The high tide roost at Elmley today saw 24 curlew sandpipers & 6 little stint, along with 193 dunlin, 3 spotted redshank, 2 ruff, 150 avocet, 5 bar-tailed & 25 black-tailed godwit, 2 turnstone, 200 ringed plover, 1 common & 3 green sandpiper & a greenshank. Raptors included a merlin,...

I thought I'd let one of the Elmley regulars, Sean Huggins summarise the days sightings, courtesy of a posting on the Kent Ornithological Society's website - he spent more time on the reserve than me y/day! "Another excellent wader session at Elmley over the big spring tide yesterday...

Todays north-easterly winds produced an arrival of northern sandpipers at Elmley this evening. At least 45 green & 6 wood sandpipers could be found: mainly around the Flood, but particularly from Southfleet hide, where there was 24 greens, all 6 woods and a juvenile little stint to boot.. Also still...