This year I set myself the task of finding a 'Cuckoo's Nest. The first thing to note is that this is a complete misnomer as the nest does not in anyway shape or form belong to the Cuckoo, it is the property of the host species of course, be it Dunnock, Reed Warbler or Meadow Pipit. So with this difficult task in hand, and at Will the Warden's suggestion I bought a copy of Nick Davies' brilliant book Cuckoo, Cheating by…

Yesterday evening I had the pleasure of guiding 10 members of the public along the Saxon Shore Way at RSPB Cliffe Pools to listen to the wonderful song of the Nightingales. As usual I pretty much promised them the song, but I never guarantee a sighting, knowing how difficult they are to see.

After giving them a small talk about the plight of the Nightingale and specifically regards Lodge Hill and Medway Councils' plans…

After a very successful first Nightingale Walk on Thursday last it was lovely to get this email. 

This evening as the title says was the first walk of the year to listen to the wonderful song of this amazing bird. Thirty of us met in the car-park at Bromhey Farm a little before 7 o'clock I gave a small talk about nightingales and their plight generally and specifically Lodge Hill in Chattenden,  Kent. This site, a disused army camp has the highest concentration of breeding pairs in the country.

A recent survey…

Great news, even though a little late in the season, at least two Nightingales and a singleton are singing at Cliffe and Northward Hill respectively as of yesterday evening. A single Cuckoo was heard near the office a day or so ago. The first Nightingale Walk is this Thursday, meeting in Bromhey Farm car park at 7.00. I also saw my first Swallow of the year.

Apex predators, elusive species and a stunning suite of birdlife, RSPB Northward Hill has it all!

Walking down the track from the office in the beautiful sunshine was a delight, with Peacock, Tortoiseshell and Comma all chasing each other round, shooing rivals off their patch in the sun. Sometimes it was difficult to see who was chasing who, but all seemed to be on an equal footing, occasionally their aerial sparring would…

Now that the weather is finally improving, please come and enjoy the delights of the reserve. In a couple of weeks or so the iconic Cuckoo and Nightingale will be back and hopefully Turtle Dove.

A sure sign of the warming weather, a beautiful Ladybird (Coccinella septempunctata) on a Mountain Ash twig appearing to be eating Common Yellow Lichen (Xanthoria).

I thought it would be interesting to look at what the local owl populaton is eating. So I gathered up a couple of the dryer ones and took them home to dissect, something I've never actually done before! 

After soaking them in warm water for 24 hours I very gently puddled them around a bit to separate the bones and drained then tipped them out onto some kitchen towel spread out to dry on the radiator. Next day was the…

I say that because a lot of people and mainly the popular press cite the first day of Spring as the 1st of March and sometimes it does feel like it and of course we all want it to be so after a long winter.

Walking round RSPB Northward Hill today there was a definate Spring like feel to the reserve, even though the weather was not that warm, a chill breeze made it a cool 9 degree factor.

So what was about today? The beauty…

At a local birthday party I was looking at the photos on the High Halstow hall wall and was intrigued to see this one entitled Storks and Decoy Farm.

For those who don't know this location, it is an old farm building on the North Kent Marsh. It was dated 1935, looking at my 1945 edition of The Birds of the North Kent Marshes there is mention of the attempted re-introduction to the UK of the White Stork, a bird that…

With the unseasonal weather over the last week or so some surprises have been on the wing on the reserves. I saw a butterfly flit past me as I was at Cliffe last Wednesday as we removed the skip full of 1.56 tons of plastic from the River Thames foreshore. Even on a brief glimpse, I reckon it was a Wall Brown, which of course is a fairly regular sighting along the sea wall, but a little later in the year. The first one…

I am pleased to announce the final tonnage for the clean-up is an amazing 1.56, in round figures one and a half tons. So add that to the (in round figures) three and a half tons of last year that's an impressive 5 tons! A big thank you again to all the lovely volunteers who made the effort to give up their Saturday morning and early afternoon. 

Yesterday’s Thames Cliffe Marshes Plastic Clean up was the first of the year and importantly a year since we did the very first one… amazingly February 2018, when we removed from the tide-line as I recall 1.96 tons of plastic and I had an overwhelming 80 volunteers turn up.

 Over the year we collected an amazing 3.5 tons in total with two more in May and October and a couple of mini ones thrown in for good…

Yesterday Will Tofts the RSPB Warden for the North Kent Marshes and I went to the Thames View Crematorium to say goodbye to our good friend and defender of the Marsh Paul. The tone was set from the outset to be an uplifting occasion, a celebration of a full and fulfilled life. His younger brother Roger read 'A Short Walk Through Paul's Life'. Towards the end of the proceedings, we were all invited to quietly reflect on…

This year I am going to take a picture of Northward Hill from the same vantage point i.e. a 'pull in' along the top road entrance track every week to keep a record of the changing seasons. Today is the fifth one, being the beginning of February. Yesterday I went up there to get a picture of the hill in the snow as all the surrounding villages had had a substantial fall overnight. Amazingly and confusingly none of the…

      Thanks to Daniel Lambe-Hyner for the images of Widgeon on the reserve plus Common Buzzard and Kestrel.

The following birds were counted on the day here at Northward Hill RSPB Reserve:- A Bewick's Swan, 6 Black-tailed Godwit, 2 Buzzards, 125 Coot, 2 Cormorant, 7 Curlew, 15 Gadwall, 1 Green Sandpiper, 10 Grey Heron, 5 Greylag Geese, 2 Mallard, 20 Shoveller, 27 Snipe, 167 Teal, 537 Wigeon. 37 Mallard, 4 Marsh Harrier, 4 Mute Swans, 1 Pintail, 2 Pochard,

Many of you will be aware now that Paul died last Wednesday a few days after his 85th birthday, he was a member of the Gravesend Group and a great supporter for many years of the North Kent Marshes. Malcolm Jenning of the group has written about him and it says everything you need to know about this exceptional man. I will miss him greatly, Malcolm also sent a couple of photos of him.

'Paul Keene loved the north Kent…

The North Kent Marshes in winter is a magical place, where you can see winter thrushes, Redwing and Fieldfare in huge numbers but, many other birds like Lapwing in good numbers.

So onto this week what birds are about? So let’s start at the top and go for it and that has to be James McCormiskey’s sighting of a Bittern at Shorne Marsh yesterday. The Bittern a ‘bogey bird’ for quite a few birders, fairly frequent at Dungeness…

Today Belinda Lamb and I went out beyond the RSPB Reserve on to the River Thames Port of London Authority foreshore/tideline, so essentially further than Redham wall and Alpha pipe line aznd as far as Lower Hope point. This is pretty must where we have been been before for 3 plus 2 of last years Clean-ups.

Slightly disappointingly a lot of what we had once cleared was still there, whether it had returned or had just been…

As a joint venture between various bodies I am organising the first of the year, Belinda Lamb of The Guardians of the Deep and I will be going out onto the North Kent Marsh next week to decide which section we will target. After seeing the images captured by David Burridge I'm guessing already it will be more or less in the same place, but of course it will depend on how many volunteers we have on the day.

So now…

Today was a beautifully sunny, but cold morning on the reserve here at RSBP Northward Hill and the real start back this week for most. Christmas and New Year are over for another year and the kids are back at school.

There are plenty of thing to see, including the stunning Fieldfares and the equally fantastic Redwing, two birds of a feather that nearly always flock together. Both can be fairly difficult to get close…

Homes England, who currently own and maintain the disused Army Depot in Chattenden, have recently announced they have scaled back their plans to build houses on the site. It was you will remember initially going to be 5,000 when it was owned by Land Securities, they then pulled out and H E took over and announced it was to be 2,000, some of which would be on the S.S.S.I. and hugely threaten the wildlife, not least of…