Today I had the privilege of taking a Community based charity group from Chatham round on a nature walk at RSPB Cliffe Pools. I opened up the car-park at 10 am as I do most weekends. From there I could hear a lot of birdsong including, Chiff Chaff, Blackcap, Whitethroats, Dunnock, Cettis’ Warbler and Reed Warbler.
About 10.30 the organisers, Steve and Shila arrived, Steve I’ve met before, but Shila was new to me. By just before 11 everyone had arrived and that twenty or so minutes gave me time to introduce myself and get to know the 26 attendees.
One or two had mobility issues so I opened the gate to let them out of the car-park and onto the reserve.
We walked on at a gentle pace listening to the birds with me identifying them along the way.
Up on the mound viewpoint we looked across Radar Pool to the River Thames and beyond to Essex.
On the islands and on the flooded quarry we could see Great Crested Grebe and Shelduck, unfortunately as sometimes happens, no nightingale regaled us on this occasion with their legendary song, but we did hear plenty of other birds.
At the end of our walk we stopped at Allens pond to listen to (to every ones’ amusement) the Marsh Frogs singing. I think most would agree they made up for the lack of Nightingales this morning.
We retraced our steps back to the cars. Everyone agreed it was really good to get out into the country and reconnect with nature and see an area of Medway most don’t really know exists.