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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...

Todays highlight was one of those "right time, right place" moments - a late afternoon turn around the reserve and suddenly a harrier appeared over the counterwall. There has been a ring-tail hen harrier around until last Sunday at least, and at first I thought that this bird was it. But as...

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...

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...

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,...

The juvenile red-necked phalarope remained on the Flood today, often showing very well from Wellmarsh hide. Also on the Flood were seven little stints (all juvs from Southfleet hide), about 16 juv curlew sandpipers, seven ruff (one ad), two spotted redshanks, one green and three common sandpipers, two...

Well it's all go these days! Although there was no sign today of yesterdays Temminck's stint (presumably last nights clear conditions prompted it to carry on with it's migration) in it's place there was a peachy juvenile red-necked phalarope. This tiny tundra treasure twirled & twitched...

There were still at least 18 juv curlew sandpipers and one little stint up on the high tide today, but the star turn was a rather un-assuming mud coloured wader that pottered about in front of Southfleet hide this evening - an adult Temminck's stint. A few pairs of these tiny waders nest on occasions...