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I spent the afternoon yesterday down at the Concrete Barges, scanning through the gulls (still spaces on the Klaus Gull ID Days by the way ... 01708 899 850 ) but only finding two Yellow-legged Gulls and a 1st winter Caspian Gull for my troubles. There were lots of Rooks and Jackdaws amongst the Carrion...

Yesterday a Bonaparte's Gull was found by Rich Bonser at Crossness and Barking Bay yesterday. This is a very rare visitor from North America where it is sort of the Black-headed Gull equivilant. This is the first record for London and Essex and was watched from both sides of the Thames! From where...

Birds moved through pretty quickly today and by mid-morning 31 Wheatears had been seen; by mid-afternoon only a couple were to seen. Additions to this mornings first flush were three Golden Plover , Little Ringed Plover , the not so elusive Garganey , Willow Warbler and three Reed Warblers . The Brown...

Over the last week there have been further sightings of Iceland Gulls along the foreshore and out on Wennington Marsh and the Target Pools. It would seem that we have at least two more new arrivals with another different 1st winter and an almost all white 2nd winter. So the totals for the month are...

Another wonderful day out on the reserve but alas too clear and bright to have grounded any Wheatears! A grand day anyway with a very good selection of species seen although things were at times frustrating... A Great White Egret headed low and west at about 1120 and definitely landed in one of the ditches...

Despite searching we could not find any of the Wheatears that were seen at the weekend but at least the pair of Little Ringed Plovers gave us some hope of thing starting to change. Five Chiffchaffs was an increase on yesterday and the Lapwings were really starting to display out on Purfleet Scrape.....

Dominic Mitchell was on fine gulling form on Friday and had a fantastic seesion around the landfill site. Some of what he found was seen along the forshore by the Stone Barges and the birds also visited the Taget pools and Wennington Marsh. March is often a good month for returning gulls and amongst...

It is currently high tide on a cold grey very unspringlike day and several hundred Black-tailed Godwits have already come up river and headed out over the marsh to roost and feed on the Target Pools. Making for quite a spectaular flypast for the visitors having a cup of tea and cake! (Brenda Clayton...

Early March can be a pretty good time to catch up with the scarcer gulls as they head back north from where ever they have spent the winter. The pale 2nd year Iceland Gull that we saw in late January and early February was seen again on the foreshore by the Stone Barges last weekend and also today while...

With three Little Gulls and a summer pluamged Mediterranean Gull yesterday afternoon we made it to eleven species this week on the reserve and today we managed all of those in just one day! Fantastic! And just in case you were wondering they were... Black-headed Gull Little Gull (four more today...

Truly cold today and five layers were not enough to keep the wind out. Blue skies were a bonus though and good light afforded excellent views of almost everything we saw which included a new second year Iceland Gull on the Target Pools and a fine adult Yellow-legged Gull along side it. The Peregrines...

This morning's Caspian Gull was photographed by Pete Merchant as it skated around on the first ice of the year. Not a particularly big individual and I suspect that it is a new bird. A little earlier Shetland Wildlife posted on Facebook about a huge influx of Iceland Gulls into the Northern Isles...

and a taster of Caspian Gulls seen on the landfill site in the last week or so! The Ukrainian bird. The Polish bird. Check out Dominic Mitchell's blog for more info on recent gulling!

The event this Saturday is going ahead but I should point out due to the mild weather and the lack of any rain to make Wennington and the Target Pools wet, that there are actually very few gulls around at the moment. Not much we can do about it but still feel free to come along and hopefully some will...

Sorry been away for a few days so lets catch up: Friday 27 saw a miserable day with north easterly winds up the Thames which actually meant a fantastic day to spend looking at the river from our convenient visitor center balcony... shame I was on my way to Norfolk! Anyway the haul of terns and...