Rainham Marshes

Wild Isles – Making nature accessible in Essex and London

2023-03-20T09:27:00Z

Find out how you can start your nature journey at RSPB Rainham Marshes, where visitors have the chance of spotting Kingfishers and even Water Voles. (read more)

Ornithological Summary February 2023 Rainham Marshes

2023-03-10T13:58:00Z

Ornithological Summary February 2023

RSPB Rainham Marshes

February remained quite cold; the westerly airflow prevented any influx of newcomers. Duck and wader numbers were quite low for February. We have had a few highlights of the month. A male Hen Harrier was seen on the 4th which was a great find. We had a gyrfalcon on the reserve on the 8th, the visitors who spotted was extremely excited and got some wonderful photos. We had two sightings of the Bittern on the 26th and 27th. A pair of Short-eared Owls were seen a couple of times this month hunting, lovely photos taken by our visitors. We have two Barn Owls in the roosting box, we are hoping they will move to the nesting box. This was a concern when we were putting up the new nesting box that we might scare away the Barn Owl that was currently using the roosting box. Luckily, they have not been frightened away and we now have two Barn Owls in the same tree. Avocet reached 57, three Water Pipits around the pools. The Dartford Warbler was seen up until the 12th.along with the Firecrest.

Photo credit Paul Rigby

Wildlife Walks at Rainham Marshes

2023-03-01T14:58:00Z

Come and explore Rainham Marshes with one of our guides, as we take you on a wonderful wildlife walk around the marshes. Every season sees a different cast of wildlife awaits you!

Rainham Marshes is an important area for wildlife, and a great place for visitors all year round - you can expect to see breeding wading birds and a variety of invertebrates in spring and summer. Also look out for lapwings, redshanks, wheatears, stonechats, kingfishers, hobbies, curlews, swifts, sand martins, house martins, warblers, marsh harriers, reed buntings, water voles, damselflies, butterflies, bees (such as the shrill carder bee and the brown-banded carder bee) and grass snakes.

In winter, you can see large flocks of wildfowl. Keep an eye out for marsh harriers, golden plovers, water and rock pipits, little egrets, snipe, chiffchaffs, curlews, lapwings, dunlins, redshanks, shelducks, peregrines, kingfishers, short-eared owls, stoats and weasels.

Buy your tickets online now to reserve your place!

Adult £5.50-6.50 (£5.50 RSPB member),

Please bring your membership cards with you.

Binoculars available for hire. Please ensure you arrive at least 10 minutes prior to the event start time.

Wear weather appropriate clothing, and meet us at the reception desk in the visitor centre.

Our walks are usually 2 hours long.

Rainham Marshes is in Purfleet - which is just a few minutes walk from Purfleet station, or just off the A13 and M25 J30/31.

We have a café, shop, visitor centre, toilets, four hides, and good hard paths around the reserve

February half term

2023-02-07T19:36:00Z

We have some fun activities for all the family at Rainham Marshes during the half term

to book please visit

Rainham Marshes (rspb.org.uk)

Ongoing Nothern broadwalk closure

2022-10-31T20:14:00Z

We apologise for the ongoing closure of the northern boardwalk. The decision to close was made in order to keep visitors safe, as the boardwalk has reached the end of its lifespan. A new Project Manager has now joined the team at Rainham and we are considering several options to reopening the site fully. We understand that the closure may cause frustration and we apologise that we cannot yet give a date for reopening. There will be a further update in the new year; and in the meantime, please rest assured that we are working hard to get our trails back to the level of quality that visitors expect and deserve

Volunteering opportunities

2022-10-31T20:02:00Z

Volunteering opportunities available

We have vacancies for new volunteers in multiple roles!

Do you want to be part of a great team, learn new skills and be part of a great charity? if you do then please speak to a member of staff or contact Kirsty.scott@rspb.org.uk

New Weekend Work Party

2022-10-01T13:04:00Z

We are pleased to be starting a new weekend work party! If you would like to help nature and don’t mind some physical work, then this work party might be for you. You will get to meet new people, help nature and have go home knowing you helped nature.

If you are interested, please register your interest by following the link.

https://volunteer.rspb.org.uk/opportunities/36723-practical-reserve-work-rainham-marshes-purfleet-2022-08-25

we hope to see you soon

notice to our visitors

2022-09-21T11:06:00Z

From Monday 26th of October the shop will be closed. We are currently in the process of relocating the shop upstairs in the visitor centre. We are expecting the work to take 4 days. We will update when the shop move has been complete.

The café will be closed on Monday 26th of October for maintenance, it will re-open the following day.

We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

Rainham marshes closure for our patron the queen

2022-09-18T09:27:00Z

As a mark of respect to our patron Queen Elizabeth Rainham marshes will be closed on Monday 19th September. Our thoughts are with the royal family on the day of the Queens funeral.

Rainham marshes will reopen on Tuesday 20th September. We appreciate your patience and understanding

In honour of our beautiful Queen Elizabeth

2022-09-10T17:24:00Z

In honour of our beautiful Queen Elizabeth .Our wildlife explorers group created this magnificent bug habitat. Named Bugingham palace. come and see it in the picnic area at the reserve

August Sightings

2022-09-07T13:53:00Z

The Highlight of August was the wryneck ,Plenty of visitors had the pleasure of seeing the wryneck along with some great images being taken.

We have had two spoonbill this month including the yellow flagged Dutch spoonbill.

There has been a great show of brightly coloured yellow wag tails

Wader numbers have not been great this month two Turnstone Spotted, Redshank and a Wood Sandpiper was the highlights.

The cattle egrets made a return with eight in one day. Along with a great white Egret.

Snipe was showing well by the butts hide.

Rainham marshes is starting to look slightly greener after such a huge heat wave. We appreciated the rain as much as the wildlife that lives here. image Jason hicks

RSPB Rainham Marshes Recent Sightings and Summer Highlights

2022-08-09T11:25:00Z

Hi Everyone,

Woweee well July has been the hottest month RSPB Rainham Marshes has ever experienced. As I am sure you must be aware this has affected the Marshes. However we have survived one severe heatwave, and there may be more yet to come this year. It’s worth reflecting how fortunate we are to have been unscathed by the Wennington fire which blazed just a stone’s throw away from the reserve. Our thoughts go out to our local neighbours who were severely affected by the fires. Only the prevailing wind and the A13 protected Rainham Marshes.
However, we have still had some wonderful wildlife within the reserve with our ornithological highlights being as follows. I think the stars of the show this month has to be the spoonbills, the big debate is are there two or four. I think there’s four which are visiting quite regularly as one pair contains an adult who is ringed and the other pair are un-ringed. The ringed bird and partner are seen most regularly.

Spoonbill carrying nesting Material - Pic Credits Dave Newbold

They have remained on site throughout July and have been seen to be carrying reeds and nesting materials around, its very late in the season but maybe they’re planning ahead for 2023! Black tailed godwit have grown in numbers to a flock of around 20-30 with their lovely tortoiseshell plumage. The marsh harriers have fledged two juveniles. Two little ringed plover families have stepped out of the reeds, bearded tits are showing well and the first common sandpiper and green sandpiper have arrived back on the reserve.
Our starling flock are gathering and warming up for hopefully some nice murmuration’s soon we estimate the flock to be around 1500 in number.
The photo below shows the green sandpiper on the left and the common on the right clearly shows the size difference between the two.

Green sandpiper and common sandpiper – Pat Hart

Grass snakes have been showing more regularly recently and especially around the Purfleet Bridge zone. Such beautiful creatures, and such awesome swimmers. Jason Hicks was in the right place (the Purfleet Bridge) to capture this fabulous image of one of our grass snakes staying cool.

Grass snake pic by Jason Hicks

For the lepidopterans amongst you insect life has been very busy. We were very excited to see a clouded yellow butterfly back in the reserve. Lesser emperor dragonflies and also willow emerald damselfly are gracing us with their presence again. Truly beautiful. Annual migrant, first recorded 1996 in Gloucestershire; sightings are becoming more common, especially in England. Breeding first proved in Cornwall in 1999; further scattered breeding sites have been identified since then.
The insect life within the reserve is amazing at the moment, we have a few spaces left on our Insect Discovery walk on 14th August, which you can book online or give us a call on 01708 899848 to book a ticket over the phone. Our team of expert guides will help you to enjoy and identify the mini wildlife here at Rainham.

Pic Credits: Rose & Dave Newbold Lesser Emperor mating

An update on the boardwalk:
Many of you will be aware that our boardwalk is not in a good state, especially through the woodland and the north section of the loop. I want to reassure everyone that we are well aware of the situation and the level of repair that is needed. The aim is to completely replace the areas which have started to rot in larger sections rather than patching up broken boards as they appear. This will take a bit more time but will grant us much more resilience in the long term.

The children are enjoying the summer holiday and many are enjoying our weekly pond dipping sessions, a big thank you to all the volunteers who help with this activity. They have discovered a lot of dragonfly nymphs, water boatmen, bloodworms and Pond Dipping has been sold out for the last few weeks which is great to see so many happy children. We are also taking part in RSPB Big Wild Summer and have a fun activity box and a trail based on animals around the clock.

Sponsor A Sparrow is continuing to be a popular way for people to easily donate and help our lovely flock of sparrows. By the end of August the first group of newly donated terraces will hopefully be added to the front wall.
Finally we have seen this harbour seal quite regularly now in Aveley Bay, he is a wonderful shade of red, pigmentation which I believe comes from the iron content in the Thames Estuary.

Harbour seal pic by Rambling Man

Have a fabulous month everyone, stay cool and we hope to see you here at Rainham Marshes soon

Caroline

Visitor Experience Manager
RSPB Rainham Marshes

OPTICS WEEKEND: Saturday 9TH AND Sunday 10TH of July

2022-07-07T14:58:00Z

We are holding an optics demonstration weekend this weekend, Saturday 9th and Sunday 10th of July.

Further reductions in the price of selected RSPB spotting scopes.

82 HD scope with 25-50 zoom eyepiece, was originally £1299, now £800
Harrier 80 ED scope with fixed 35x eyepiece was £449, now £249
Harrier 60 ED scope with fixed 26x eyepiece was £399 now £199.
Avocet 80 with 20-60x zoom eyepiece was £249 now £80

Come try these and the rest of our range of binoculars and scopes on Saturday and Sunday 9th and 10th of July.

June '22 Recent Sightings Blog

2022-07-04T14:59:00Z

June Sightings Board:

June Highlights!

Sanderling (2 June)
Spoonbill x2 (4/5June)
Greenshank (4/5, 11 June)
Grasshopper Warbler (5June)
Spotted Flycatcher (seen on and off throughout the month)
Cuckoo (seen and heard most of the month)
Little Ringed Plover (4/5, 8/9, 29 June)
Great White Egret (10/11, 19June)
Little Egret (present most of the month, but on 18 June there were around 50 across the reserve with a majority on the Purfleet Scrape)
Female Golden Oriole (18 June)
Curlew (19, 24 June)
Long Eared Owl (pictured) (21 June)
Wood Sandpiper (30 June)
Bearded Tit and juveniles (seen regularly all month)

(photo credit: John Hastings)

Ornithological Summary May 2022

2022-06-15T09:23:00Z

RSPB Rainham Marshes - Ornithological Summary May 2022 Bar-tailed Godwits Glossy Ibis (8th May) Grey Plovers Hobby arrived early May most seen at once was 7 Short Eared Owl 22nd May Peregrine - 1 seen fairly regularly throughout the month...(read more)