Wildlife highlights - this week so far (20-27 October 2018) - Rainham Marshes - Rainham Marshes

28 Oct 2018

This week's wildlife stars are still the two cattle egret that are still showing nicely!

Cattle egret by John Humble

Pat Hart (one of our volunteers) was exploring on Friday and described his day like this: a cold wet windy morning, dryer afternoon – not the best of weather for birding – but still managed to get all three pipits – rock on the sea wall, water from the Butts Hide and meadow on the Ousel Field. Only one pair of stonechats seen on the fence by the reeds at the back of the Dragonfly Pools. avocet and curlew numbers up especially at high tide midafternoon. Best sighting of the day was the pair of cattle egrets roosting and preening in the North West corner of Aveley Flash whilst I was on the second lookout platform. Hope you like this video:

During the day we saw a total of 64 different species. The whole list is here:

Canada goose, greylag goose, mute swan, shelduck, shoveler, gadwall, wigeon, mallard, 11 pintail, teal, pochard, tufted duck, pheasant, little grebe, 2 cattle egret, grey heron, little egret, cormorant, 3 marsh harrier, buzzard, moorhen, coot, 25 avocet, lapwing, 12 curlew, black-tailed godwit, ruff, 75 dunlin, 5 snipe, green sandpiper, redshank, black-headed gull, great black-backed gull, herring gull, lesser black-backed gull, wood pigeon, collared dove, barn owl, kestrel, magpie, jackdaw, carrion crow, blue tit, great tit, skylark, cetti's warbler, long-tailed tit, chiffchaff, wren, starling, blackbird, robin, 2 stonechat, house sparrow, dunnock, pied wagtail, meadow pipit, water pipit, 3 rock pipit, chaffinch, greenfinch, linnet, goldfinch, reed bunting.

Snipe are showing really nicely at the Ken Barrett Hide. This stunning shot was taken by Bernard Bradshaw

Winter duck numbers are starting to build up - the teal are looking stunning! This fabulous picture is by Andy Reid.

The lovely Autumn days have been bringing out the invertebrates - keep an eye out for butterflies, dragonflies and even some bees:

This bee was showing well the other day - it's a common carder bee by Andy Reid

Howard took this video the other day of black-headed gulls feeding in the mouth of the Mardyke River - have a look:

Take it away Howard: The other morning in the pre-dawn light I saw a heap of black-headed gulls feeding in the mouth of the Mardyke just down from the bridge. They were skimming just below the waters surface much in the way that Greenshanks and Spotted Redshanks do, speedily chasing down tiny shrimp prey that are also feeding in the shallow channel. So much energy.