Please note: The Environment Agency has put out a flood warning for the River Mardyke from North Stifford to Purfleet.

The car park and entrance drive could be affected.

With what feels like near constant rain (especially of a night time) the marsh is looking particularly wet and lush at the moment and duck numbers have been steadily increasing with perhaps 2000 across the reserve at the moment.  The sounds of whistling Wigeon, plooping Pintail and plipping Teal can be heard even from the visitors centre.

Pintail - HTV

Three Egyptian Geese have been with the Greylags and Canada flock…

This wondrous juvenile female Hen Harrier has been floating around this morning and was found by H is for Hawk author Helen Macdonald on her very first visit.  She was very pleased, as were we when it reappeared right in front of the centre.

This enigmatic and much persecuted species used to roost here in small numbers in the winter up until the late 1980s.

Both these cracking images were taken by Andy Tweed before…

We are looking for a Catering Manager to join our team! 

Here's some details:

 Andrew Gouldstone

Catering Manager

We are looking for an enthusiastic, confident and highly organised individual to take on the role of Catering Manager at our Rainham Marshes nature reserve.

You will be responsible for delivering the café's menu offer and driving income to support our conservation work. You will work with an assistant…

Site Manager, Andrew Gouldstone, has written the following blog all about the work on Rainham West. Take it away Andrew:

Some of you may remember a piece that I wrote for the blog last winter, describing an encounter with a bearded tit (of the avian variety) on the northern boardwalk. That encounter happened whilst I’d been thinking through the various permissions that we needed, so that we could undertake new habitat…

It has been a busy few days out on the reserve with cooler conditions bringing in more wildfowl to the marsh with over 500 each of Wigeon and Teal on Purfleet Scrape on Friday morning with 33 Pintail and the other usual dabblers amongst them.

Wigeon and a Pintail - HTV

Big flocks of Greylag and Canada Geese are roaming around and will hopefully draw in some rarer geese but so far only four Brent Geese have taken the…

A smattering of bird news on a very wet and wild week with the Barn and Short-eared Owls still putting on a show when the weather is condusive but today was all about the skies...

From double rainbows...

To moody cloud scapes over the high tide

To not quite sunset Independence Day moments

Some other ornithological highlights from recent days...

RSPB Rainham Marshes: Firecrest, Short-eared Owl, Barn Owl, 12 Pintail, 

We are looking for two people to join our team! 

We have a two different roles (Catering Manager and Facilities Manager), both full time and permanent.

Here's some details:

 Andrew Gouldstone

Facilities Manager

We are looking for an enthusiastic, confident and highly organised individual to take on the management of the facilities at our Rainham Marshes nature reserve.

We need someone who has a high attention to detail…

Why not come along to our annual indoor free festive fair to pick up some of those all important seasonal gifts.

There will be hand made crafts, gin, mead, art, photos, jewellery, bags, decorations, and more - as well as a special cafe menu and of course some appropriate musical accompaniment.!

This Autumn The National Lottery celebrates it 25 birthday. 

Since 1994 over half a billion pounds of National Lottery funding has been invested in over 9,200 projects to help people enjoy the great outdoors. 

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The 25th birthday is a moment to celebrate the extraordinary impact The National Lottery has had right across the UK, and to say thank you to National Lottery players for contributing around £30 million to good causes…

Last year Bernard Bradshaw took pictures of a Grey Heron fishing in the tidal mouth of the Mar Dyke where it caught an amazing Greater Pipefish which is a relative of the Seahorse (which is also found in the Thames).  It was a new species of fish for us.

Today, what could concievably be the same adult Grey Heron was caught in the act of despatching an enormous Tub Gurnard! This vivid orange red fish is found in the Thames…

CHRISTMAS GIFTS!

With the festive season upon us, I thought it a good time to have a plug for some potentially interesting gift ideas. As you well know our hireable Photographic Hide has become very popular in recent weeks but did you know that you can purchase a Gift Voucher for a future slot?

The same applies to our one-on-one Photographic Tuition Days so if you feel like giving a present with a little sparkle then…

Yesterday Tony O'Brien found a Snow Bunting grovelling around on the edges of Purfleet Scrape although he did not know quite what he had found at the time.  Thankfully he sent me a pic and voila an identity was forthcoming!

Much to my delight (and surprise) it was still present today and had two sessions on view for the visitors before disappearing again.  This Arctic species is just about annual here but usually they…

There is exciting work going on out on Rainham West at the moment to give this area a good working over to help create some habitats similar to those found on Aveley Marsh at the east end of the site.  New fences are being put in, invasive bramble cleared from the middle and lots of new ditches, scrapes, rills and other water holding features.

However, the best find so far was this large female Common Toad that Ian the…

The first Penduline Tit for eight years was seen today by a very luck John Humble & Jonathan Ely outside the Marshland Discovery Zone. It did not linger but we have plenty of reedmace to keep checking although it eluded us in a thorough search this afternoon.

Fingers crossed that it puts in another appearance!

Two great shots from Jonathan Ely - I will add John Humble's when I get them - So jealous

The Barn…

This is another guest blog from our amazing Warden Jamie:

Hello again.

I wanted to say a big thank you to everyone that helped out at yesterday's reedbed clearance day! It means a lot, and makes such a big difference to the reserve. 

Reedbeds are a key habitat for the reserve - not just here at Rainham, but for the whole of the country. 

Reedbeds are important for a wide range of creatures including birds, mammals and…

With the festive season fairly imminent don't forget that we have a complete selection of RSPB binoculars and telescopes for you to try before you buy and out Optics Weekend over Saturday 30 November and Sunday 1 December is the best place to have a gander at what we have on offer.

So please pop in and have a look and one of our trained optics advisors will be able give you some guidance.

Oh and do not forget that…

Evening all...  It was calm, still and bright today and that got people out looking for Firecrests as hearing their high pitched calls and catching movement was easier!

One Firecrest was in the gorse at near the Serin Mound, another was around the Centre gardens and the other two were in the ivy between the Cordite entrances. - Good luck!

Wednesday 13th November 2019

Tomorrow is the first of the Reedbed Clearance Days - each year we have to cut a proportion of the 29 hectares of reed bed across the reserve. This helps preserve and improve the habitat., and we need your help removing the reed by raking and transferring into builders sacks. If you would like the opportunity to get down off the visitor trail and into a reed bed then it would be great if you could make one, or both of…

Morning all...

As usual the reserve will be respecting the two minute silence at 11am to remember the Fallen. If you are visiting please join us in taking a moment to remember what our precious reserve used to be and the role it played in the deployment of troops from many nations to battlefields many would never return from...

This is another guest blog from our Warden Jamie:

In Autumn and Winter the team of brilliant staff and volunteers of the wardening team are out on the reserve in the ditches, covered in mud cutting and managing the reedbeds.

Annual rotational cutting of a proportion of the 29 hectares of reedbed is both vital for the health of this habitat, and a requirement of our higher level stewardship (HLS) agreement with the Department…

This is another guest blog from our fantastic Warden Jamie:

On Thursday 7 November over 40 members of the public and a whole host of Rainham volunteers headed out on to the foreshore of the River Thames for our Plastic Pollution Beach Clean.

We were lucky with the day - the sun was shining and a group of people turned up to give us a hand. After checking in with Paul we headed out onto the foreshore.

With the exceptionally…

Just a short note from Rainham Marshes Warden Jamie Smith to say how well today's plastic foreshore cleanup went "the turn out was massive and very welcome, thank you to all those who came along and gave up their time and worked so hard, the photo shows how much plastic was collected, there will be a more comprehensive post to show exactly how the day went, but for now, thank you one and all from everyone at…