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Many may have noticed this year that we have had no trouble raising our water levels. Plenty of rain has meant that the reserve is possibly looking the wettest that most can remember. This is fantastic as it has created a great habitat for the winter bird’s arrival. It also makes our days much...

It is getting to the time of year where we start seeing the marsh looking like everyone supposes a marsh should look like.....very wet. With all the rain we have had over the last couple of weeks it is not surprising that the water levels have risen and all the rills and scrapes have filled up. This...

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...

Compared to some of the glorious winter weather we've experienced recently, today wasn't too inspirational, but the team took the opportunity to get out "in the field" anyway. A quick check first of the Elmley livestock: all the cattle have now gone until the spring, with only the sheep...

The weather over the past few days has, by & large, been fantastic! Gloriously sunny days, light (or even no) winds, crisp & clear. On Saturday afternoon, the visibility was so good that, looking through my 'scope from Kingshill Farm, I could pretty much count how many people (12 - 15 I thought...

Well, here we are in 2012 and returning to Elmley after my Christmas break, I very much had a sense of deja vu, although on this occasion it wasn't just the RSPB website that I couldn't access - I couldn't connect to the internet at all! We traced the glitch to a faulty dongle and having...

Anticipation is mounting for the impending arrival of a benevolent elf from Lapland. But as far as I'm concerned, he's been beaten to the UK by a number of his fellow compatriots! RSPB are now managing a number of fields on the Harty Marshes at the east end of the Isle of Sheppey. We have acquired...

Well, here we are again. After a lot of investigation & loads of techy stuff waaay over my head, the bottom line is that I am now able to get onto the RSPB website from Elmley. So hopefully, normal service has been resumed. It's been about a month since my last update and in terms of water...

Fingers crossed, the Elmley/RSPB website saga could soon be rectified. It seems that the mobile phone connection we use for our computer system at Kingshill Farm has been routing requests to access the website to a different address & so the operation "times out" before the mistake is realised...

Time for another of my rather infrequent updates, as I STILL can't access the RSPB website from Elmley. We're still trying to fix the problem, but it's a slow process. Highlight of the month so far was the discovery of a grey phalarope on the Flood reservoir on Saturday night. It was still...

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...

Plenty of stuff around for the good numbers of visitors that visited Elmley over the weekend. Where to start? The 3 spoonbills remained faithful to the Flood most of the time, although they can sometimes be difficult to see when they choose to feed in the deeper channels. Still at least 3 garganey...

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...

This winter has been pretty hopeless for short-eared owls at Elmley. We had a run of records in the autumn and then very little after the first cold snap, with the last record back in January. Until now. For the past day or so, a bird has been hunting the fields around Kingshill Farm. I was returning...

A slightly belated new year's greeting from Elmley. I have been back at the reserve since the 30th, but haven't found the time to update what's been going on here. So here's a quick summary. Natalie found an Egyptian goose by the access track on Boxing Day and up to 4 have been present...

It's been quite quiet on the reserve over the past few days. The continuing cold snap has meant that none of the water bodies on the reserve has properly thawed out, so most of the birds remain either over the seawall on the Swale, or have moved further afield. However, coming back to Kingshill Farm...

Following Rob Clements rough-legged buzzard that I missed on Monday, Phil Sharp came in on Wednesday (when I was away from the reserve) and found 2 shorelarks near to Southfleet hide. He even managed to get a photo. As far as I know, this is the first record of these fantastic northern larks at Elmley...

Well, what a change from yesterday. From dull with persistent rain, to a bright, frosty start, atmospheric early mist soon clearing & a gloriously sunny day (though still quite parky) to follow. A good day for seeing raptors. Disappointingly, I had to spend a chunk of the day in the office doing...

A single spoonbill has been around the reserve over the past few days, either out on the Swale or on the Flood. I had assumed that it was one of the sub-adult birds that have been around since the summer. It was back on the Flood again today, but when the Sunday vols came back to the office, they said...

Things have been a bit quiet on the reserve over the past few days, although even in "quiet" periods there's usually something of interest around the reserve. On the 25th, a short-eared owl, a wheatear & 3 brambling were around Kingshill Farm. On Monday, 2 little stint were present...

Out bright & breezy this morning to check the livestock and to instruct our digger driver on the days jobs, I drove round the corner of the seawall at Swale hide & flushed a snow bunting from a small patch of saltmarshy vegetation near the hide. "Great! The first of the winter" I thought...

I've not been able to up-date the blog recently, so think a quick up-date as to what's been seen on the reserve is in order. Highlights over the weekend included a report of a short-eared owl on Saturday, with both little & barn owls being seen at Kingshill Farm. 2 merlin and 2 peregrine...