Today James McComiskey, an RSPB volunteer and I  drove out onto the North Kent Marsh aiming to go beyond Lower Hope Point and look at the Blythe Sands area on the south bank of the River Thames.

The seawall continues on and eventually peters out a little way away from Egypt Bay. Climbing up the steep bank and looking over the wall I wasn't really sure of what I would see plastic wise, everything or nothing. What I saw…

www.youtube.com/watch  

Here is a taster of the documentary that was filmed of our Big Plastic Clean-up on the North Kent Marshes last February organised by RSPB Medway Local Group. 80 volunteers collected and cleared just shy of two tons of plastic off the River Thames foreshore at Cliffe on the North Kent Marshes.

We have since had two more, however, this time targetting smaller items, straws, cotton buds and bottle…

This one today was a bit of a mini clean-up in the Cliffe Creek area at the top end over the seawall looking across to Tilbury.

This time I enlisted the 1st New Barn Scout Group. This was not going to be easy as we were focussing on the old landing stage where a large amount of small items had accumulated on the tide line.

I gave a mini-briefing regarding safety etc and hygiene, emphasising, of course, the danger of…

Early evening to dusk is a great time to visit the reserve, it does give a completely different perspective to this unique area of the North Kent Marsh, not that it is a noisy place during the day.

Dusk is a good time to hear the Marsh frogs singing their distinctive song, like a deep-throated clearing, and when they vocalise in unison the cacophony is amazing and almost defies description. Seen close-up males inflate…

Yesterday evening was the last of this years ‘Nightingale Season Singing Walks’ and I was always a little worried as their singing period is so short and this was pretty much the extent of that period, never-the-less nearly thirty members of the public and volunteers  gathered in the Bromhey Farm car park to hear the Nightingales legendary song. Alongside the usual welcome, I gave the assembled people a  small…

This evening was the 4th Nightingale walk on the North Kent Marshes and it was a privilege to meet and greet 28 people and to give the 20+ or so of them who had never heard, let alone seen a Nightingale the opportunity to change that.

So after a briefing explaining the rationale behind the occasion, ie not only to promote the bird and it's iconic but never the less precarious status in the Count,y nay Country. I had…

Yesterday was the second of the year's attempts to remove plastic from the foreshore tide-line on the North Kent Marshes. We more or less covered the same area from Redham Mead to Lower Hope Point, however this time the difference was we were aiming for the smaller stuff more fiddly, more difficult, more everything really, but really in many ways more important as the smaller the particles the more the environmental impact…

Today I had the privilege once again of taking the U3A group from Knole near Sevenoaks on their annual walk at Northward Hill RSPB. We met in the Bromhey Farm car park at 10 am. It was a pleasure to see such a pleasant group once again.

I gave them a small talk about the Nightingales plight and in particular the very real threat of further habitat loss on the peninsula and the even greater danger they faced with the…

The 3rd of May saw the second evening walk at the reserve hosted by the Medway Local Group, by 7pm 27 of us had gathered to hear the legendary bird sing, a good two thirds had never heard a nightingale and I promised them a real treat. Up to Sweeney Viewpoint and down the gentle hill to Lipwell, where a couple of males could be heard limbering up.

Plenty of other birds entertained us as we made our way to the bridge…

Avocet swimming, a male cuckoo, little egrets, a sunrise at Cliffe Pools and a sunset over Gordons Hide at Northward Hill. My thanks for the images to Wendy Turner, Colin Oldman Birchall, Andrew Edwards, Chris White and Eliza Saunders.

Dawn Chorus

Posted: 05 May 2018 02:56 PM PDT

Last Tuesday I had the great pleasuure to lead a walk on the public access routes round Lodge Hill in pursuit of Nightingales. Here is my report back to the RSPB Medway Local Group:-

Yesterday evening was the 2^ndNightingale Walk run by the Medway Local Group and the first and only one of the series advertised nationally by the RSPBs Adrian Thomas Project Manager currently leading the Save Lodge Hill campaign. Thanks…

I have to admit the weather for the morning didn’t look too  promising but at least it wasn’t raining or cold but high expectations of high numbers of birds were not, well, high .

So 9 members attended and we were joined by a family of four the Taylors, from Essex bringing the count up to 13, after a quick briefing and having had a chat with Will the Warden to find out what was about, we just missed the…

So this evening was the first of several walks to illustrate the iconic and uniqueness of this much loved songster thoughout and up to the end of May the main singing period for the males as they establish their territories.

I set the dates early to mid winter not anticipating then the weather from the East earlier on in the year, which had a knock on effect on early arrival migrants.

I must admit to a little nervousness…

The anticipated Medway Local Plan Development Strategy was made public on Friday and disappointingly, but not unsurprisingly the development of a revised 2,000 houses directly on and immediately next to the SSSI at the deserted army camp at Lodge Hill in Chattenden site was one of 4 'scenarios' put forward by Medway Council to help meet housing needs in Medway by 2035. The other options will all see development bordering…

VOLUNTEERING OPPORTUNITY

 DO YOU HAVE A SPARE FEW HOURS A WEEK OR A SPARE DAY A WEEK?

DO YOU FANCY VOLUNTEERING TO HELP OUT AT THE LOVELY RSPB NATURE RESERVE AT GREAT BELLS FARM?

WE ARE LOOKING FOR VOLUNTEERS TO SPEND A FEW HOURS EACH WEEK WITH OUR WORKPARTY GETTING STUCK INTO PRACTICAL CONSERVATION AND MAINTENANCE WORK AROUND OUR RESERVES AT GREAT BELLS FARM AND HARTY ON THE ISLE OF SHEPPEY.

IT WILL PROVIDE…

The North wind doth blow,

And we shall have snow,

And what will poor Robin do then,

Poor thing!

 Go into gardens and find plenty of seeds, fruits and fat balls etc as there aren't so many barns around these days!

It is so important to keep the bird feeders regularly topped up and water available as well.

Thank you to John Humble (the lovely Fieldfare image) and Eliza Saunders for the Robin.

Just a reminder of what was there and is now safely bagged and skipped for 100% recycling.

Here is the email of thanks, I sent out to the volunteers.

Thank you to everyone who attended and contributed to filling that huge container/skip with approx 600 bags of plastic off the River Thames foreshore at Cliffe North Kent Marshes.

Brief for the day

Basically we decided that the problem was too urgent to leave until May especially as this was likely not be a one off; we looked at the tides for the weekends and chose Saturday the 24^th of February 2018 as the weekend tide was right to accommodate a 10am start and briefing and 11am start on site and a finish between 2.30 and 3pm at the latest.

The task of clearing the plastic off the shore-line…