NEW HYTHE SUNDAY 16TH JANUARY

I finally managed to get out this morning and after such a wet and gloomy week, what a welcome surprise the sun was when it finally came out too. I don't know why but it seems to be getting darker in the mornings and evenings to me as well lately instead of lighter.

Anyway, there were two Mistle Thrushes standing tall on the piece of grass behind the Brooklands cafe, my first of the year at New Hythe taking my list to 60. Nothing much to report on Brooklands lake, the only new additions being quite a few fishermen who are no doubt pleased to be able to wet a line after the weeks of ice.

The tide was high on the river so I didn't venture into the woods, instead electing to tackle the quagmire round the near deserted sunken marsh. Hardly any berries, hardly any birds, but plenty of mud! A single Redwing, a single Lapwing, a short burst from a Cetti's and some Magpies was all I could muster. Talking of Magpies though, while I was updating my NH list this afternoon I realised I hadn't listed one so far this year, so that makes 61!

Abbey Mead was a different kettle of fish with five Shelduck (62) catching my eye on the lake straight away, the first of the year for me here. Also seen were a total of three Goldeneyes, two of which took flight and are pictured below and a further one found a bit later in the south eastern corner. A single drake Wigeon was also dozing in the middle of the lake and this chap bought my total to an unexpected 63 so far.

I was joined then by John Davies, a fellow birder from Leybourne and while we chatted I spotted a super Goosander on the lake (top picture) and John located the long staying Red-head Smew along the Eastern edge. This was actually his third Red-head Smew of the morning, the first on Alder's lake and the second on Streamside. A fine Sparrowhawk also put in an appearance while we scanned the lake but unfortunately still no sign of a Kingfisher. It's been about four weeks or more since I last saw one at New Hythe and I'm beginning to wonder if the hard weather has taken it's toll.

I called in at Streamside lake on the way back, bumping into Dennis and Doreen on the way and together we located the Smew which John had mentioned earlier on. A good sized flock of Siskins and Goldfinches was seen on the Millstream path but a search for a Water Rail in the swampy area further down failed to turn one up, I always struggle a bit with this one.

Bizarrely, when we reached the car park the two Mistle Thrushes were gone and were replaced by a young girl exercising a pony on the tiny patch of grass beside the Cafe..........nothing surprises me any more!

NEW HYTHE MONDAY 10TH JANUARY

Brooklands lake was 50% or more covered with a thin layer of ice again this morning. The southern half was clear though and it was here that I saw the first two of four Goldeneyes seen today at New Hythe lakes.

I decided to walk along the path on the northern edge of Abbey Mead lake, adjacent to the water filled ditch which carries excess water from the Railway lake. This eventually empties into Abbey Mead where the path becomes a dead end, but affords quite good views of the unfrozen eastern edge of the lake. At last, in this narrow stretch of ice free water, I finally located the Red-head Smew that has eluded me for a while now, this is a new bird for the year and brings my total for New Hythe so far to 59 species. While I stood watching the distant Smew a Bittern came gliding lazily past me from the hidden northeast corner and crashed down in typically ungainly fashion into the reedbeds opposite. Not a bad start to the morning I thought!
At the start of the railway path my attention was drawn to the sound of quite loud, creaking and pinging noises coming from the corner of the lake. It turned out to be the action of the ripples moving the sheet of thin ice where it meets the open water, pictured below. I stood alongside listening for a couple of minutes, the wind was very light, there was no other sound and I found it quite eerie listening to the usually so quiet water.

A loose flock of maybe 30 Lapwings flew over the sunken marsh area, with one or two dropping down to feed by the river and a distant Sparrowhawk, the only raptor seen today circled downstream.

All in all I would say it was generally very quiet today, it was more about quality than quantity, even though I did see 41 species in all. As I walked back to the car park with Dennnis and Doreen who I bumped into over in the country park, the quality continued when I spotted another Bittern (below) standing in the reeds in the northeast corner of Brooklands. This is right in the shadow and drowned by the noise of, the ghastly paper mill. Obviously, unlike me, the birds don't seem to mind it.







On reaching the car park we detoured a short way up the Millstream to look for a Water Rail but only found the two semi resident Teal and a couple of Moorhens. My last port of call was to Alders small lake aka the Trout lake where I was told the female/immature, had been joined by a male. My heart sunk as I arrived to find a couple of fishermen in situ but I soon located the pair at the far end of the lake and managed to get a couple of distant shots of them.

The first of the two pictures below show the male looking up at a gull as it passed low over it's head. And in the second one, appearing to lift his legs up and splash water at it, in an apparent attempt to tell it to sod off and leave him alone. Never seen that before! Mind you the gulls often do torment the life out of them as they surface with food.

Lastly, I was pleased and amazed on Saturday morning when a flock of between 20 and 30 Siskins landed in the Laurel tree in my garden. In previous years i've only ever noticed maybe two sightings of single Siskins in the garden. This is a really good year for them it seems.

BITTERNS AGAIN! 22ND DECEMBER

TUFTED DUCK

I pulled in to Brooklands car park this morning and was pleasantly surprised to see Greenie from Greenie in the wild just putting his gear on. I think the recent Bittern sightings had lured him down from his usual haunts so I was happy to tag along with him as an extra pair of eyes.

We started off scanning Brooklands lake where some of the margins showed signs of a small thaw. We didn't find a Bittern there but we were entertained by a couple of Snipe which flew up and down between a couple of the fisherman's swims. It's been really good to see so many of these birds at New Hythe in the last couple of weeks during the hard weather conditions. The tide on the Medway was quite low but on the rise, and as we stood in the small wood a Kingfisher was heard calling close by and briefly seen and a Redshank flew downstream. We checked all the Little Grebes out in the hope of finding one of their less common cousins, but despite our best efforts, disappointingly, we didn't find one. We were pleased though when a Goldeneye dropped in, which I instantly thought was a drake, but after a few looks and a hasty photo or two we realised that it wasn't the adult drake seen by Alan Woodcock yesterday but a probable immature or first winter drake showing quite a lot of white to the front and flanks. There's a very bad picture below!

Still looking for Bittern we headed to Abbey Mead lake where we concentrated our viewing in the north eastern reedbeds. As we stared intently across the corner of the lake a small splash to our left turned out to be a Kingfisher diving into the small, shallow, ice free stream close to the bank. Goodness knows what it could have seen there to dive for but I hope it got whatever it was. Needless to say we still hadn't found a Bittern, isn't it always the same, I've found them on the last four or five visits, sometimes, like buses, three turning up in a row but when you really need one.....it's the kiss of death.

Over to the Railway lake and I suggested to Greenie that maybe a circuit of the lake would be a good idea, especially as there had probably been no disturbance by fisherman for a while. The plan was to try and spot a Bittern from a distance, before it spotted us, but three quarters of the way round our concentration was fading, which of course is when one flew up from the reeds just in front of us! I didn't get a picture but Greenie got a couple of it's rear end disappearing into the gloom. I hope they came out OK, check out his blog here. We walked over to the usual viewing area on Streamside lake and scanned the reedbeds opposite, but of course we couldn't see anything there and it was now time for me to go. So I parted company and started heading through the small wooded area to the Millstream path. I'd taken four or five paces and bugger me if a Bittern didn't fly up out of the wood! We were amazed, what was it doing in there? I can only think that it was searching for food in the absence of ice free water. Greenie then headed for the conservation lake and I continued to walk down the Millstream towards the car park, but it wasn't over yet because the final surprise was another sighting of a Bittern, or possibly the same one, which flew up from the far side of the stream and headed up towards the conservation lake. Again, i've never seen one there before but it does hold a good head of fish and is mostly unfrozen.

Just to brighten up the post, here's a picture of one of our garden visitors, sometimes there's three of them and occasionally i've counted five. They dominate the feeders at times which winds me up a bit but they need to eat as well, so good luck to them.

NEW HYTHE MONDAY 20TH DECEMBER

There was a Cetti's Warbler flying quite openly between the reeds and brambles this morning as I made my way along the western edge of Brooklands lake. You wouldn't normally expect to see them like that but these are desperate times if you are a 'little brown job' and perhaps even more desperate if you rely on open water to feed, like Ducks, Kingfishers, Grebes and Herons. At the moment there isn't any open stillwater at New Hythe lakes as the picture of Brooklands lake above shows. There were about twenty Coots strung out in a line making their way to the centre of the lake to avoid a couple of big black dogs bounding around the edge. The person in the left of the picture is Alan Woodcock, I saw his car in the car park earlier. I hope he had as good a walk as I did today.

Abbey Mead is also 99% frozen with just a small twenty foot by twenty foot patch of open water (below) containing dozens of birds including Mallards,Shovelers,Gt Crested Grebes, Tufties and Coots. Thankfully this piece of unfrozen water is on the eastern side of the lake which is pretty inaccessible so at least they don't get disturbed. Except that is by the odd fox (above) who chanced his luck on the ice this morning. While I watched, a Kingfisher landed in the small tree next to me and then he headed for the tree next to the open water, fat chance of finding fish there though I fear.

It was a similar story on the Railway lake, it too has only a very small piece of unfrozen water to offer the few remaining Coots. As I stood by the lake I had one of half a dozen sightings of a Sparrowhawk, this one chased a Redwing into the lakeside bushes alongside me but flew away empty handed this time. The other sighting here was a flyover Skylark and a Mistle Thrush, both new species for the December NH list. I continued on to have a look at Streamside lake and maybe find a Redpoll in the Alder trees there but i didn't find one. Maybe it was something to do with the shouting lady with the five barking dogs, or maybe i'm just getting cynical. Either way I stayed until the noise had faded into the distance and then retraced my footsteps to cross back over the railway line. But as I passed the south west corner of Railway lake again a Bittern flew up from the first fisherman's swim there, right next to the wide, often busy path that skirts the East scrub. I managed to quickly get a poor rear view shot as he flew off towards Streamside. That's the first Bittern i've ever seen on this lake and where it flew up from is solid ice, another desperate situation I think.

There were a lot of Redwings along this path and a few more Fieldfares than usual but they are still extremely shy and the picture below is the best I could do, but even that is better than I normally get.

Then came the next surprise, another Bittern, I've seen more at New Hythe so far this winter than I've seen in my lifetime. This one was also on the Railway lake, standing on the ice under the Willows on the Eastern edge. It was almost out in the open and was visible from the main path just before the railway crossing. There was no chance of finding food there because as the picture below shows it is solid ice.

Maybe that's why he decided to leave and try somewhere else, although goodness knows where. I wondered if they might visit the reeedbeds alongside the river but I somehow doubt it as I think they prefer fresh water and the river here is brackish being tidal. The in flight efforts below are a bit blurry but I've left them in to show some plumage and wing shape which isn't often seen.

With the river path still probably blocked and a high tide spilling over into the adjacent ditches I decided to walk down the wide path where a large flock of mainly Long tailed Tits were feeding in the Oaks alongside and another Sparrowhawk made a failed attempt to find food. At the end of this path I planned to join up with the sunken marsh path but before I did I walked along to the small bridge by the river and there, to my surprise was a female Goldeneye, the first i've ever seen on the river. I took a couple of pictures and was about to go when a small Grebe flew past me heading north along the river, it was either a Slavonian or a Black necked Grebe, I can't be sure which but I lean towards Slavonian purely from the shape of the black crown. I wondered if it had come down in the area of the creek further downstream by the small wood. So that's where I headed next.

On the way I spotted this handsome Fox, just as he spotted me, he was a superb looking specimen with a really red coat and a fine tail, he certainly seems to be survivng the weather OK. Perhaps he's one of the three that have been visiting my garden lately and eating the chicken I leave out for them.

It's been quite a long story today so I'll cut it short and say that I didn't find the Slavonian Grebe, but I did find a Water Rail in the creek and saw four Snipe and a Grey Wagtail over the river as well as two Reed Buntings which are another addition to the December list bringing the total to 65 species. Coincidentally a certain person did predict a figure of 65 for this month, you know who you are Warren! I'll obviously try my best to reach 66 now.

Finally, here's a picture of a Teal on the river who has found a good way to conserve precious energy.

New Hythe Monday 29th November

I left the car in the drive today and walked from home to Brooklands lake and back via the country park. These are some of the good bits.

The Goldeneye, pictured above is still on the smaller of the two Alders Lakes, aka the Trout lake. It's very difficult to get close to but I managed to sneak up a bit nearer today. There was a flock of about twelve Siskins feeding in the first Alder tree down the towpath between the two Alders lakes along with some Goldfinches. On the big lake were plenty of Pochard, Shoveler and Gadwall alongside the regular species, but strangely no Gt. Crested Grebes as far as I could see. Probably due to a lack of small prey fish in this lake since it was given over to monster Carp.

I accidentally flushed a Common Snipe from the Bittern viewing spot, one of two seen today, unfortunately though, despite my best efforts, I didn't see the Bittern. But after i'd seen it a couple of weeks ago, Eddie Denson spoke to some contacts at SE Water and I believe Mid Kent Fisheries and the Country Park and asked for some extra protection for the birds. Today I saw this sign which refers to the fishing swim directly alongside the reed bed that the Bitterns use. This could have been a major disturbance for them if it had been occupied by fishermen for days and nights on end. Nice one Eddie.

Still good numbers of Little Grebes on the river, where I saw the second Snipe of the morning along with three Redshanks, a single Lapwing and one of two Kingfishers seen today. There were literally hundreds of Redwings in and around the sunken marsh as well as three Bullfinches, a Green Woodpecker and a single Fieldfare.

And finally, i'm pleased to say that the Slavonian Grebe is still with us on Brookland lake, although it took me about half an hour to find it. There was also a Goosander at some point in the morning but I managed to miss that. Grrrrh!!

No new additions to the New Hythe November list today, which looks like staying at 56 species.

Oare Marsh and New Hythe 22nd November

Alan Roman and I went to Oare marshes this morning, it was cold, very cold!



It was 4 degrees when we arrived and that was without the wind chill so we quickly made our way to the sea watching hide where it was nearly as bad when the windows were open. The main species seen were Shelducks, Avocets, Curlew, Redshanks and the occasional Oystercatcher, most of which seemed to be heading towards Shellness in the distance. We noted several flocks of Brent Geese in the far distance and some very large flocks of Lapwings which also appeared to be heading to or from the same area of Sheppey. Perhaps the best bird seen from this hide was a Skua species heading West to East, the concensus in the hide was that it was an Arctic Skua but it wasn't confirmed, good to see though.



In an effort to restore circulation to cold extremities we started walking along to the East flood hide, just as it started to rain. We managed to get inside without getting too wet and without seeing much either, and that was the story for the rest of the morning really. Pintail, Shoveler, Teal, Wigeon and all the commoner duck species were present but not very active.



The only real entertainment came from a Cormorant that was wrestling with a sizeable Eel which was wrapping itself around the beak and head of it's captor in a valiant attempt to avoid being eaten. It failed. A few minutes later we saw the Cormorant swallowing water and stretching it's bulging neck skyward as it struggled to get it's slimy, writhing, twisting, smelly lunch down it's gullet. This made us feel hungry, so we did the same, only not with eels. The only other moment came when a male Marsh Harrier did a low pass and put everything up in panic including a large flock of Black tailed Godwits, which until then had sat motionless on an island facing into the wind with their heads tucked back. They circled briefly en masse, their black tails and white wingbars looking superb even in the almost non existent early afternoon light, before landing and striking their earlier pose as if nothing had happened. Marsh Harrier, what Marsh Harrier?



Even on a good day the west flood hide can be quiet. This wasn't a good day, say no more. A couple of Greenfinches, a couple of Greylags and a Green Woodpecker. Oh, nearly forgot the Magpie.....

On the way home I decided to have a very brief look at the two Alders lakes at the bottom of my road after hearing from Alan Woodcock that the female Goldeneye had returned. I soon found it but I couldn't get very close, it's very shy, so the above was the best I could do in the fading light and distance. In the few minutes I was there I also saw a Goldcrest, you can't move for the little blighters now, a Green Woodpecker, a Gt. Spotted Woodpecker, doing what it says on the tin, and a Wren. It's now 19.00hrs and my feet are still cold!