Over the last few years the phragmites and greater reedmace along the Northern Trail has filled up all the availble space and as such it has become almost impossible to see anything in the winter let alone the summer months unless it is either on top or along the front edges.

As such, I headed out on Thursday with the work party and helped to create a series of channels through the dense vegetation. Reedbed birds like…

After the HUGE tides in recent weeks we often get a super low one and Wednesday's one went out way beyond the Neolithic bog wood revealing old jetty pots and more of the ancient wood than we normally see. Stangely, a low tide (of any sort) at Rainham is not much good for us bird wise as the mud at that level is not food rich as it is covered by over 25 feet of silty water at high tide. Most of our tidal wading birds prefer…

With heavy rain overnight that lasted till lunchtime and snow flurries every now and then it was great to see that the waters are startring to flow at last and Purleet Scrape is really starting to take shape with puddles merging and channels overflowing.  There have been a few more Wigeon hanging around and the first Little Egret was foot fidgeting earlier today!  I reckon that over the next week it will really get going…

Our new benches for the Cordite store woodland arrived recently (in giant kit form!) and Dhruti and Ian spent Thursday putting them up. Three are in place and will provide you wit the opportunity for a contemplative stop at any time of year.

Note the member of staff giving approriate directions to her volunteer.....

The two lecterns that have been up for some time now have my interp boards in.... they look very good…

It's that time of year and we had a small after work do on Wednesday.... very little alcohol and a surprising amount of 'singing'.  See, we are human after all!

'I should be so lucky, lucky - lucky - lucky........'

Amazingly another visitor has caught our yawning Black-tailed Godwit in action! Clive Watts even captured Rhynchokinesis on film and the bird did it several times.

www.youtube.com/watch

Clive has stitched together several instances of the bird doing this in a short video. The longer one below is also well worth a watch!

www.youtube.com/watch

Bendy Bill (Clive Watts)

Shock! Horror!  An ok bird picture by me!

Evening all...

A piece of Canon Camera equipment has been handed in at Rainham Marshes. If you have lost something within the last week please email terry.robinson@rspb.org.uk with details of what it was (model, serial number etc) and we shall endeavour to return it to you.

cheers

H ;o)

The moon rose huge in the east but too low for us to see any of the partial eclipse and has now disappeared into the clouds!. The sunset however was a fabulous shocking pink herring-bone pattern.

Fords above the Butts at dusk

Cold but largely still with glorious sunshine all day. It started well with a huge Moonset over Fords which I tried to capture on my camera but failed although the result does look quite like a huge Saturn with two rings all askew!

Hopefully we shall get to see the Lunar Eclipse just before sundown this evening!

Not so many waders over the tide today whcih was no where near as big as the monster one yesterday. However…

No, we have not bumped off any Magpies (and nor would we!) but to illuminate further the rodent carnage yesterday afternoon on the foreshore over the high tide I though I would post a selection of somewhat gory images taken by Brenda and Chris Lowe.

Nature can appear cruel at times and I thought twice (for a nano-second) about posting these but this is all perfectly natural and is not a recent phenomenon. It has undoubtedly…

Brenda and Mark got some even better footage the other day and I have just got round to uploading it!

Enjoy!

www.youtube.com/watch

www.youtube.com/watch

After yesterday's tumultuous weather (but no rain, just bad wind!) were were treated to another glorious sunset today. Thanks Fred!

Not a great deal to report bird wise today but another huge tide not only resulted in the murder of quite a few Harvest Mice and Short-tailed Voles by the clever, oportunistic Crows and Magpies (images to follow!) but lots of waders piling into Aveley Pools again with flocks of Golden…

There has been a thread on the London Birders Forum in recent days about the dearth of Stonechats at many London sites with some traditioanl areas having none so far this winter. This pattern has been repeated at Rainham Marshes this season with only a handful of birds on the circuit and probably under ten on the whole site. Our peak month is October and early November and we have nearly reached a staggering 50 before now…

Probably one of our most underated bird, the humble Stock Dove has done very well in recent years and has moved into more urban area from the countryside and woodland fringes and can now be found in may urban parks and gardens. They are still largely shy and unapproachable birds but at Rainham Marshes where they were a scarce winter visitor, we now have two or three pairs nesting and sometimes over 200 feeding out on…

A good selection of birds today despite the howling wind across the marsh. The Lapwings were spooky all day and Dave Morrison managed to find the Pectoral Sandpiper amongst the flocks as they wheeled around and even got off a shot of it in which you can just make out the breast band, long wings, chunky bill and slightly projecting feet.

Two Grey Plover were with over 100 Goldens and about 80 Black-tailed Godwits came…

The event this Saturday is going ahead but I should point out due to the mild weather and the lack of any rain to make Wennington and the Target Pools wet, that there are actually very few gulls around at the moment. Not much we can do about it but still feel free to come along and hopefully some will come in on the high tide in the middle of the day along with all the waders!

I have not seen this very often but just occasionally you will see a wader (usually one with a long bill) flex the end of the bill up as if it were a finger rather than the percieved hard, tough chitinous bill!

Knew it began with Rh but has taken ages to find it so here is the definition straight from Wikipedia: Rhynchokinesis is an ability possessed by some cranes, waders, swifts and hummingbirds to flex their upper…

A very windy day out on the reserve and the Lapwings have been particulalry spooky today with clouds of them going up at the slightest provocation. And by slightest I do not mean a distant Peregrine or menacing Sparrowhawk... I reckon that they are the only bird that is scared by its own reflection. Dopey things.  All that wasted energy. The Golden Plovers are a lot more relaxed and tend to get up last when the Laps fly…

A Merlin was seen briefly yesterday morning. They rarely perch up here and most views are of a one dashing about over the fields after a stray Meadow Pipit or Skylark. Bill Potter is one of my volunteers here and captured this amazing footage of a one at Oare Marshes in North Kent recently. It had obviously just eaten as there are fluffy feathers and some blood around the bill. Anyway enjoy this close up view and have…

Several of our 550 strong flock of Black-tailed Godwits have taken to feeding just outside of the Ken Barrett Hide, affording excellent views as they probe for worms!

(Jerry Hoare)

(Robert North)

Dawn Cowan also got some good footage.

www.youtube.com/watch

www.youtube.com/watch

(image by Brenda)

Each year John Chandler runs our Art Classes and this year we are able to hold the exhibition in the Purfleet Hide rather than in the Centre. I will be more at home here!  Hopefully it will be all up and running by Thursday 8th until the New Year, so do not forget to come along and have a look whilst visiting the reserve... especially with the view improving all the time infront of the hide!

John and the Art Crew…

Morning all... Clear sky and a howling cold southerly wind this morning. Definitely wrap up warm if you are visiting us today! Purfleet Scrape is a little wetter so it looks like some of that rain from last night found its way to the right places! The geese are still out there turfing things over and a Grey Heron is out there looking for titbits.

Fairly quiet yesterday although the Spotted Redshank and three Short-eared…

Thursday afternoon saw the start of six hours of glorious, steady rain which come Friday morning had wetted up pasrt of the new Purfleet Scrape and attracted the main flock of Canadas and Greylags to feed on the disturbed rhizomes.  Just need more rain to make all the new systems work properly. Hopefully not too long to wait now although the Environment Agency are still talking about drought conditions lasting into next…