Browse by Tags

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 thought that we'd got rid of it, but once again certain bits of the reserve are experiencing a "bloom" of blue-green algae. It's not actually an alga at all, as it's "proper" name is cyanobacteria. These are photosynthesising bacteria, that can affect water quality when...

A day off on Saturday, so an opportunity to get off Sheppey & I decided to head off & try to see some new species of odonata. Or dragonflies & damselflies to you & I. Heading south from Elmley, the lifting bridge was up over the Swale, so rather than sit in a queue of stationary traffic...

First of all, apologies for the lack of blog up-dates in the past week or so - for some reason I've been unable to access the RSPB website from here and so haven't been able to add anything. Not that there hasn't been anything happening! As people may have seen from the Forum comments...

I'd been concerned for 3 months about the lack of rain, but of course I was forgetting that June is the month for Wimbledon & cricket test matches, so maybe shouldn't have been quite so worried. The last couple of days has seen another half an inch of rain drop on Elmley and todays strong...

This predictions business isn't easy you know. A couple of posts ago, I suggested that a couple of nice June surprises for the reserve might involve a roller or a squacco heron. Imagine my frustration when first a roller appeared on Monday. In Suffolk. And then today came the news that there was...

The showery weather continues, although I think I'll still have to put some more water onto the Flood. I went out this evening to check on one of the cows out there. It was OK, but some of the pools are looking low, despite the rain. But the shallow water is what the avocets love and i counted a...

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...

WARNING: THIS BLOG CONTAINS IMAGES THAT SOME VIEWERS MAY FIND DISTRESSING I made a comment on the forum about the diversity of some birds of prey diets. Not so the peregrine. It's almost exclusively feeds on other birds, usually caught on the wing. According to Birds of the Western Palearctic...

Having been away over the bank holiday at Spurn Bird Obs (am I the only person in the world not to have seen "that" dress?) and only now seeming to get 10 minutes to myself since my return, I thought it was about time that we had a bit of a catch up. The drought continues: there was 0.3mm...

NOT a quote from a Monty Python sketch, but another bizarre occurence for the Elmley warden. I'd experienced a bit of car trouble today and having got back to the reserve was slightly concerned by the smell of "overheating car" when I got out. Lifting the bonnet, I noticed 2 things: firstly...

Today was the first "field by field" census of the year for this breeding season. We carry out 3 of these to record the breeding populations across the site, walking through every field & aiming to get to within 100m of all points on the reserve. Elmley's quite a big area, so to cover...

Having had a mild rant in my last blog about birding abbreviations, I thought I'd carry on about another pet hate of mine! Sitting in Southfleet hide this evening, I had the surreal experience of watching SpongeBob SquarePants float across the Flood. "How amusing" I hear you say. Unfortunately...

About time too! I've been looking out for our first garganey of the year for a couple of weeks now. This is our only summer migrant duck, the first birds arriving back in the UK from their African wintering grounds as early as Mid-March, although most push through later in April & May. The drakes...

With light winds & sunny skies, I was quite hopeful that today would produce our first yellow wagtail or garganey of the year. Alas, I was disappointed, but the variety of raptors around today made up for it. Both male & ring-tail hen harrier were seen, along with a merlin, at least 3 buzzards...

The continuing spring-like weather made for a "more pleasant than some" boat trip to carry out the final Medway WeBS count of the 2010/11 winter season. I was joined by Andy & Jason from Northward Hill for the occasion & as we gunned our RIB across the stretch of water between Nor Marsh...

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...

Of course, it was more or less inevitable... Having led y/days guided walk in dull, windy conditions and searched in vain for a peregrine sighting, today was nice & sunny, still a bit windy, though not too bad and the first bird I saw as I passed the orchard on my way down to the reserve today...

The first guided walk of the year took place on the reserve today. Not ideal conditions - it didn't actually rain, but the strong wind didn't help matters. A pleasing 25 people turned up to be shown winter waterfowl and raptors, and while the waterfowl played ball, the raptors unfortunately didn't...