Trip reports

Rainham Marshes

Sunday, 19 October 2008

The walk around the Rainham Marshes RSPB reserve was taken up by 6 group members on a dry overcast morning. The promised sun did not appear until later in the day when the wind had also picked up. We started our day under over cast skies looking out over the River Thames prior to the reserve opening. A redshank 'bobbed' amongst the seaweed, a roost of black-headed gulls loafed on the point while a few teals swam in the creek. Inside the reserve there were a number of greylag geese feeding on the pasture. Also present were wigeon, shoveler and a mute swam. We walked though the woodland area hoping to find the first winter thrushes. A brief glimpse of a shy redwing and a continental black bird confirmed that the visitors have begun to arrive. A song thrush and some British blackbirds were feeding on the plentiful berries. An escaped harris hawk, complete with jessies, sat in a tree looking down on us from on high. We found a greater spotted woodpecker on a feeder alongside a blue and great tit. As we continued towards the hide we found a kestrel and spotted several grey herons. The bird of the day was the stonechat. We found several all over the reserve, perching openly, taking flight before returning to the same perch again. In the hide we found a little grebe and a few moorhens. A grey plover arrived, but left again quickly and a little egret fished along the water's edge. On the pool there were lapwings, gadwall, grey herons, common gulls and moorhens, but not a lot else. As we continued around the rest of the reserve the birds became more elusive. There were several sightings of stonechats, but other birds were keeping out of sight. We saw a wren, carrion crow, kestrel and a robin. It was not until the first sun started to break through that a sky lark put in an appearance. A large charm of goldfinches feeding on the numerous seeds was a colourful and welcome sight.
After lunch we took a stroll on the river bank. Here we spotted a number of rock pipits. The first of which showed a green tinge to it's new plumage. There were shelduck on the river mud as well as the ever present stone chats along the grassy banks. A cormorant was fishing in the river close by and it came up with a large flat fish that it had difficulty dealing with. A great black backed gull and a posse of black headed gulls forced the determined bird to dive repeatedly to try again on resurfacing. Eventually the poor bird gave up releasing the fish to survive for another day.
At the end of the day we counted 49 different species of bird.