Hello,

How are you today?

So I wanted to share some of the highlights form the last couple of days...

HMS Defender sailed past the reserve on Tuesday....

 Picture by David Morrison

The sun shine has brought out a variety of little creatures... The cordite store is one of my favorite places for looking for minibeasts...

Here's a variety of creatures seen and snapped recently by Lawrence Rogers:
 A bee in…

Afternoon everyone,

I hope that you are well.

On the day that Rob Yorke is encouraging people to vote Kingfisher for Britain's National Bird, over on Martin Harper's blog - I am excited to announce that our Kingfishers have hatched!

Adults start taking fish into the bank once that eggs have hatched, and that is what we have seen today!

Each chick can eat 12-18 fish a day, and are fed in rotation - once…

Do you know who you are voting for?

I thought I would borrow this guest blog by David Lindo the Urban Birder, from Martin Harper's blog... (I'm sure they won't mind)

While the political parties continue to vie for your vote between now and 7 May, another poll is taking place - for our national bird.  This poll is being run by David Lindo, the Urban Birder, and over the next couple of weeks a champion for…

Hello everyone,

how are you?

Singing white throat by Michael Franklin

There is nothing like hearing birds in full song in the morning!

Did you know you can join us, before usual opening hours, to explore the reserve and enjoy the magic of dawn?

Tony O'Brien

We are running two special Dawn Chorus events - on Sunday 10 May and Sunday 17 May, from 4am to 7 am you can come on a special walk around the…

Afternoon!

How are you today?

I'm back, I wrote a blog earlier talking about some of the smaller reserve creatures, but I wanted to tell you some of the others...

 Stunning reserve picture by Jo Collins

There's been all sorts of wildlife around - here are some of the highlights from the last few days...

 Stunning Lapwing picture by Mark Vale - just look at those oil spill colours...

Yes, I know that springly isn't a word but I like it!

It's that interesting time of year when you never know what you will find here at Rainham Marshes.

The Lapwings in their swirly aerial display, Warblers are singing away, the Hirundines are whizzing over on the hunt for prey...

And the minibeasts are starting to show off! (Which by the way, if you are interested in minibeasts we have some fabulous events…

25-4-15

Hi everyone,

how are you?

Just so that you know both lanes of Coldharbour Lane will be closed on Sunday 26 April 2015 from 7 am-2 pm.

Last November a tipper lorry came into contact with the Port of London Authority’s pipe bridge over Coldharbour Lane causing structural damage.  The damaged section of bridge was removed, has now been repaired, and is ready to be lifted back into position. In order to achieve…

Afternoon everyone,

How are you today?

It's a lovely sunny day, and the reserve is looking lovely (maybe I'm a tad bias, but it does look brilliant!)

It was a tad chilly this weekend, but that didn't stop us from seeing loads! I wanted to share some of the wildlife highlights...

The waders are doing well - lapwings are showing off nicely, getting ready for the breeding season (fingers crossed!)

I…

I have had a good selection of new books in this week including huge pile of immaculate hardback crime thrillers which are priced at just £3.50 each and a varied selection of very good bird books including Seabirds, Shorebirds, Wildfowl and Flight Identification of European Raptors....all classic bird library fodder!  All are individually priced and cheaper than you will find on line.....

oh and the top one on…

Stilt hunting was the order of the morning and with so many knocking around north Kent, Sussex and south Essex there just had to be a chance of one on our lovely marsh today. I was down at the end of Aveley Bay by just after seven and it was already warn and hazy. The river was even calmer than yesterday and the flotsam strewn mud of the bay was home to very little but to my delight those waders present were crackers…

Yes, another day off so I headed to my favourite nature reserve for a full day of exploration... It was sunny and pretty warm by just before seven when I headed out from the river wall car park and the river was glassy calm. Several Common Terns fed mid river with the lazy loafing Black-heads and almost immediately I got lucky with two Arctic Terns calling straight over my head and north while a male Whitethroat was trying…

RSPB Wallasea island Wild Coast Project beckoned and at long last I made it to this little flat corner of the Essex coast. It was a glorious morning but I was not quite prepared for what greeted me as I headed down past the sign telling me that I was officially on this still infant RSPB reserve.

I approached with the windows down and the warm early morning air was full of the sound of Skylarks serenading and Corn …

12-4-15

What a difference a day makes... dawn rose with a glorious sunshiny smile and a windless disposition. The lack of the latter was short lived and by 9.30 it was really getting up from the south west but at least it was not freezing cold. It made birding (and other wildlife watching!) quite difficult at times but once again a good selection of species were available.

I thought that the centre looked especially fetching…

This morning can be summed up by two words... wet... windy... A third one sprang to mind regarding my main task for the day... walk.

All three combined resulted in just Little Ben and two lovely brand new families turning up for the KBC. As it turned out we had a great time on the trail and the five budding naturalists quite literally soaked up the marsh in all its spring wondrousness...

A cracking view up the windblown…

Sorry that there was no blog post last night but it has been a long Easter and I needed sleep!

Anyway, it was another superb day out on the marsh with sunshine (albeit smoggy) predominating. It started well with a female Red-breasted Merganser hunting tiddlers in Aveley Bay before hauling herself up on the seaweedy rocks for a preen while two Great Crested Grebes performed a weedless dance close by. The Sedge Warble…

So it was back down to the bay for me this morning for an early morning walk to try and find a few migrants. However, I had trouble finding the car park let alone any birds. Visibility was pants with claggy wet fog but the sounds out on the marsh were amazing and, if you excluded the drone of the A13, it felt very wild and natural indeed.

Three Sedge Warblers were a little but more accommodating that yesterday and one…

I was feeling slightly grieved at not seeing Spoonbill number four yesterday so I headed back down to Aveley Bay first thing and thanks to Russ Sherriff I soon had this immature bird in view out on the Target Pools where it remained all day and was even actively feeding at times. 

www.youtube.com/watch

Spoonbill (Pat Hart)

Linnets were very active in their small colony in the gorse off towards the Serin Mound and were…

Ornithological Summary March 2015

Spring was somewhat lagging behind in Marsh and although there were warmer interludes it was generally very chilly and windy and as such migrants were a little scarce. The first Little Ringed Plover arrived on the 14th with a pair the next day with a Wheatear on the 19th and the first Sand Martin on the early date of the 8th but these were not the vanguard of an invading force and little…

So I had a few spare minutes this morning before work and popped into the end of Aveley Bay to have a scout round for a Sedge Warbler or bounding Ouzel but I was in fact greeted by three adult Spoonbills feeding actively on the foreshore in the bay at 0720....

I could not believe my luck. I have seen a few here over the years but never on the foreshore and actually in the tidal Thames. They looked quite a home and given…

This was a recipe for a very busy day on the reserve; in fact one of the busiest ever, and the visitors never stopped streaming through the doors all day. It started well with three Common Terns found on the mirror-flat Thames by Rich Jones and two adult Med Gulls ‘kowwed’ their way up river before heading over the marsh and onto a few year lists. Further along three Sedge Warblers did the decent thing and…

So..... at last a nice spring day and after an unsteady start it turned into something quite memorable. Despite the lack of early morning Garganey things soon started to look up (quite literally) with the first of several obviously moving Buzzards from Paul and Jack Hawkins. By late morning this had reached 18 birds along with seven non-local Marsh Harriers and such obvious movement attracted the attention of our own…