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Is it Spring? Not all of our birds seem convinced! We are hearing nightingales and cuckoos, and seeing the usual migrants, whitethroats and lesser whitethroats, willow warblers and chiffchaffs, but are they here in the numbers that we would expect? In the next of the RSPB’s monthly bird ringing...

Our first Swallows of the year were spotted five days ago and since then we have had a steady stream passing through the Northward Hill reserve. Chiffchaffs and Blackcap are now in song and a large fall of Wheatear (50+) this morning, along with our first singing Nightingale, really signaled the start...

Walking through the woods today the birds weren’t singing and the bees weren’t flying. But before I cried into my last soggy tissue I took a moment to have a poke around in the undergrowth. The variety and density of mosses was outstanding, and it’s the best time of the year to observe...

Over by Decoy Hill two Bewick Swans and a White Fronted Goose were spotted! This was three days ago (22nd Jan), spotted by Paul Keene.

As we were not quite snowed in yesterday morning, turning up to work was obligatory; there is no skiving when you live on site! Our first job was a log delivery. For a while now the team at Northward Hill have been undertaking fire wood deliveries to the Hoo peninsular as a way of raising money for the...

Happy New Year! The area around the Calling Radio Station (the red brick building visible from the marshland viewpoint) has been dramatically transformed over the past month. If you visited in December you will have seen the humongous trucks and diggers scouring the earth, digging out shallow scrapes...

Looking out of my bedroom window last week I discovered not only a beautiful rainbow but also another of nature’s great spectacles, the blemish of molehills. Moles are fascinating animals yet relatively little is known about them. Amateur naturalist Peter Stafford took the very first photograph...

Standing in the freezing cold November air waiting for the start of the race I wondered why I had chosen to miss my Sunday lie-in in favour of a 5km run through pits of mud and chilly water. Then I thought about my past four months of residential volunteering on the RSPB reserve at Northward Hill. I...

Great Expectations On such a December morning as this there is no finer place to be than Northward Hill. The driveway from the road to Bromhey Farm car park as with other reserves is often a thrill in itself, with Rooks, Crows and Great Spotted Woodpecker enjoying the winter sun and blue skies overhead...

The residential volunteers creating an enclosure to allow scrub to develop near Conoco pool.

Flock of black-headed gulls take off as we head back to land!

Birdwatching from the water, warden Andy Daw, Cumulus fairweather clouds and abandoned bargeds on the river Medway. The Wetland Birds Survey (WeBS) is undertaken once a month over several sights: Northward Hill, St.Marys Marsh, Site X, Shorne, Higham Marsh, Cliffe Pools and the Medway River.

The memorial benches overlooking the marsh viewpoint have been restored and put back after hours of digging from the warden and residential volunteers, at northward hill.

Here is a photograph of a Buff-Tailed Bumblebee (bombus terrestris) with mahoosive pollen sacs! It's obviously found plenty of delicious flowers to munch on ;-) The rest of the photographs can be viewed by clicking on the blue link below. I haven't quite got around to identifying all the wildflowers...

My partner and I noticed this beautiful purple flower, that also reflected hints of blue and violet, soaked with rain, as we left RSPB Northward Reserve on a visit in the first week of July.

Taken today at Northward Hill, singing merrily at me.

Taken at Northward Hill this morning (1.3.11)

At this time of year, the wetland birds that visit Northward Hill are beginning to get a little more interesting and varied. Some of the birds noted by the team and members of the public include: Green Sandpiper Common Sandpiper Wood Sandpiper Greylag Geese Avocet Lapwing Heron...

It's been a very long time since any "work-type" news update was made on the Blog, unfortunately I'm not an 'Official Blogger', so you can all make-do with this more awesome forum post until someone does an official Blog update. As of the 25th of June, I will no longer be working...

Howdy all, A little (and possibly the last) update from myself here at NHH: Birds: Little Owl, Cuckoo, Blackcap, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Reed Warbler, Song Thrush, GreenFinch, Jay, Swift, Green Woodpecker, Long tailed tits, Dunnock, Whitethroat, Black-headed gull, Little Egret, Rook, Jackdaw...

Birds: Jay, Stock Dove, Common Tern, Little Owl Invertebrates/Insects: Emerald Damselfly (Lestes sp.), Broad-bodied chaser, common blue butterflies, Holly blue butterflies, Brown Argus, Small heath, Azure damselfly.

This months wildlife sightings (May 2010): Birds: Hobby, Turtle Dove, Song Thrush, Cuckoo, Shelduck, Buzzard, Corn Bunting, Bearded Tit, Coot, Moorehen, Red-legged partridge. Animals/Reptiles/Amphibians: Brown Hares, Harvest Mice, Woodmouse, Fox, Grass Snake, Great crested newt(shorne...