A pleasant morning out on the trails with a good assortment of waders on Aveley Pool and some very showy baby Water Voles from the last bridge on the Northern Trail. I have heard three Yellow Wagtails heading over but too high to see and several Swallows flicked through without stopping. Looking up is always good and at 1110 I picked up a Honey Buzzard circling southwards. It was pretty high and obviously on the move. Amazingly a second big bird of prey suddenly dropped out of the cloud base and gave the Honey a bit of a surprise. However it was me that was actually speechless as this second bird was a Black Kite. . . What were the chances of two such rare raptors over Rainham at the same time? David Lindo and his team are up the City as I type this, watching the skies from the top of Tower 42 (the old Nat West building). I hope they have similar luck!

Since I wrote this a little while ago, the Black Kite has been seen heading back acoss the Thames from Crayford to the Landfill site and a juvenile Marsh Harrier and three Buzzards have also been seen on the move.

23-8-12