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It's not every day that I add a new species to my Elmley list (I think you'd have to go back to the May 25th "double-whammy" of black-winged pratincole and hoopoe in 2009. Now that was a day...!); and even less often that I get to use the ever-so-slightly disparaging term for a red...

For anyone out there with a penchant for flocks of honkers, Elmley is the place to be at the moment. I am of course referring to geese - not necessarily all wild, but there are a lot here at the moment, both in numbers and varieties. I counted 7 types this afternoon, and possibly missed at least one...

The first guided walk of the year took place on the reserve today. Not ideal conditions - it didn't actually rain, but the strong wind didn't help matters. A pleasing 25 people turned up to be shown winter waterfowl and raptors, and while the waterfowl played ball, the raptors unfortunately didn't...

A change from Elmley today. As part of the ongoing monitoring of important bird populations in the Medway & Swale estuaries, the RSPB carries out bird counts on the Medway that go towards the British Trust for Ornithology's We tland B ird S urvey (WeBS). In order to cover the many off-shore islands...

Having predicted in y/day's blog the likely arrival of wild geese onto the reserve, it turns out that they've already started to arrive. I heard this morning that a flock of 10 white-fronted geese were out on the marsh between Kingshill Farm and the Flood yesterday, where there was also 3 pink...

No sign today of Saturday's pectoral sandpiper, but wader numbers & variety continue to increase. High tide this evening saw the following waders on the reserve: 12 spotted redshank, 1 greenshank, 275 curlew, 4 whimbrel, 5 ruff, 105 black-tailed godwit, 1 bar-tailed godwit, 35 grey plover, 7...