Birding Braunie

It’s amazing really the quality and quantity of wildlife you can see at Rainham Marshes. An oasis within an industrial desert, Rainham Marshes attracts as good a species as the best reserves in the country. From the endangered Water Vole tucked deep in the reed margins to the irrepressible chattering of a Reed Warbler, wherever you looked there was something to see or hear. A cuckoo called and then flew over the woodland. Common Blue butterflies danced swiftly through the wild rose bushes and damselflies that appear to have more than one reverse gear tease and tangle with each other as they hover over the nettle beds. Most of the wildfowl are now lazy and seem disinterested in the squabbles of the Common Terns on the scrapes. Young coots bob about on the water and the rather weird Marsh Frogs bellow out across the marsh. For me there is no better place to be when the sun shines and the winds abate. Reed Warbler Reed Warbler Female Azure Damselfly Blue-tailed Damse...

You can’t blame rarities when they’re not where they’re supposed to be. After all, they aren’t supposed to be there anyway. Every now and then, I choose to visit a place a rare bird has been seen. In this case, it was a Greenish Warbler at Northward Hill in Kent. It had turned up only yesterday and I was hopeful that it would be around for a day or two. A few of spent a couple hours searching for the Asian Houdini but to no avail. I did find a Nightingale which gave brief views and green and Great Spotted Warblers kept us entertained. I left hoping it wouldn’t reappear and headed off to Elmley Marshes to get over it. This was probably a mistake as Elmley is a vast tract of land with very little cover. With the sun already beating down at a steady 26ºc I was going to be toast. I nearly ran over a Red-legged Partridge as I drove through the entrance gates so that was a new bird for the year. All along the 2 mile track to the reserve there were Lapwings, Yellow Wagtails, Skylarks an...