Not a bad day yesterday with plenty of waders out over the marsh including over 1500 Lapwin, 100 Golden plover, Ruff, Spotted Redshank and Black-tailed Godwits while best part of a 1000 Dunlin were along the river. A pair of Red-breasted Mergansers were on the river before flying over to Aveley Pools and two immature female Common Scoter (note the pale bellies) were on the river for most of the day and Russ Sherriff managed…

Remember the poor little voles and mice on the foreshore last week that were being swamped by the high tide?  Well, Mark Hart managed to get some footage of one of the poor little critters that was just out of reach of a rescue branch. Hopefully this Short-tailed Vole made it to shore.

www.youtube.com/watch

A beautiful shot of two Magpies taken by Chris Lowe on the 28th.  Such splendid colours! Never simply black and white.

and in this close up you can see the white nictating membrane covering the ey in a slow blink!

Peter Beard found and bought this postcard off the internet recently as it shows what appears to be the soldiers billetted in classic bell tents at the Rainham end of the ranges. The post mark is dated 12th May 1917 and somehow ended up in Macon, Georgia USA!

Peter has done some eagle eyed scanning of the image and has placed it alongside the river, looking across to Erith with what appears to be The Three Crowns pub…

There are now several Stonechats dotted around the trail and this male seems particularly fond of having his picture taken. He has a little filoplume sticking out of the back of his head (possibly a vestige of his juvenile plumage?) and I keep getting sent great shots of him and his other half!  They are usually quite near to the visitor centre and can be encountered at the end of the ramp and often towards the Purfleet…

Our family party of Bearded Tits are still around and apologies to the lady the other day who enquired about whether the youngsters could still be aged at this time of year.  I was wrong and yes they can.  Look for the remnants of the black mantle stripes to pick them out!  Sorry!

Richard has managed more fantastic footage and some of the lads have been very trigger happy witheir cameras this week with stunning results…

You would not have thought that Les could get any better shots of the Short-eared Owls but his patience has been rewarded.  Enjoy...

I've seen you...

a big blink in flight!