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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...

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...

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...

A busy day on the reserve today, with the grazier coming in to pick up the last of his cattle, so we were out first thing to get them into the pens, ready for the lorry to arrive. We may bring in some other animals, just to "tickle" the sward a bit, but there's not much cow food left. Still...

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...

Having predicted in y/day's blog the likely arrival of wild geese onto the reserve, it turns out that they've already started to arrive. I heard this morning that a flock of 10 white-fronted geese were out on the marsh between Kingshill Farm and the Flood yesterday, where there was also 3 pink...

Our sheep grazier rang yesterday to let me know that he was bringing up his rams to the reserve today (next years lambs!) and that the flock of tegs ( last years lambs) were due their inoculations. So it was out on the quad this morning to drive the 213 tegs off the Flood and into the pens. They've...