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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...

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...

I was going to call this blog "March of the Med Gull", but more of that later. Todays visit by a whiskered tern was a long over-due first for the reserve and quite clearly the days highlight. Found by Rob Clements at c.10am, the bird stuck around the grazing marsh and Flood until c. 5pm...

Churlish I know, but despite the lovely weather, I wish it would rain! It's hard to maintain a wetland reserve in tip-top condition when there's a singular lack of the wet stuff. I'm still running pumps to top up the water that we've accumulated over the winter, but sunny skies &...

There's now been up to 3 spoonbills on the Flood on a daily basis since last weekend, but only 2 were present today. And I could only see one this evening, but hopefully one or more will hang around until tomorrow. Raptors today included 2 each of buzzard, sparrowhawk & peregrine + ring-tail...

Sitting here on a dull, breezy morning, with the remnants of the overnight "rain" (a puny 2.6mm - where was the deluge they forecast?) in the air, the blackthorn bushes blooming in the Kingshill Farm orchard remind me that spring has pretty much arrived. And if that wasn't reminder enough...

A scan over the Flood this morning revealed 2 sleeping spoonbill-shaped blobs. I did hear a report that there were 2 seen y/day, but there were definitely 2 today and they hung around all day as well. The first yellow wagtail of the year flew over and there was also at least 1 spotted redshank and a...

Well, don't actually - it wasn't that hard to predict! But the first wheatear of the year duly arrived along the access track on Saturday. No sign of it today, but I'm sure that there will be others. There was also a chiffchaff reported. Today's highlight was an adult spoonbill on the...

...and I missed this one too! I was tied to the office for most of this morning, but escaped late am to do the various checks around the reserve. A quick glance at the "additional sightings" sheet in the carpark revealed that some lucky visitor had connected with our 2nd record of the year...