Rainham Today

A late afternoon stroll at RM today See's the first Wasp Spider's of the year, as well as a group of five young Common Lizards by the visitors centre (thanks H)

Wasp Spider

Bird wise usual returning waders plus several Whimbrel and two juv Avocet in Aveley Bay were new.

Owl za bout that then.......

Found a young Tawny Owl in a bit of a pickle today at work, it had got trapped between two windows on a site in southampton, but with the aid of the local RSPCA we managed too free the bird stress free.

How to rescue a Tawny Owl

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large piece of wood

prize owl onto wood

catch owl in net

un tangle owl from net

place owl safely into box.

29 Scoter and a med gull

A quick visit to Aveley bay this evening finding the rather large Common Scoter flock found earlier in the day at cross ness were still showing distantly from the car-park (thanks for updates Dom) and was three more than my previuos record at rm.

Also wader numbers again increasing with 4 Whimbrel, 8+ Common Sands + Artic Tern and juv Med Gull in the bay.

Stranger in the Bedroom!

Came home from work today to find this beast in the bedroom, Lisa was pleased i threw him out!

Oak Bush Cricket

Last Couple of days

Been working seven days a week lately and not much room for birding, good job its still quite! Me and Jack manage an evening at Rainham last night and wader passage starting to pic up with a good selection on Aveley pools inc c30 Black-tailed godwit, 4 Whimbrel, 2 Greenshank, 5 Green Sandpiper, 2 Common Sand, 4 Dunlin, 4 Redshank inc 2 juvs, 10 L R P's most juvs and several returning Snipe as well as the resident fem Wigeon and several Y-L Gulls.

Jack tics Whimbrel

A call from the In-laws to say a giant moth had taken residence in there kitchen proved to be a Poplar Hawk Moth and well worth the divert home.

Poplar Hawk-Moth

Wait til the Megas come to you!!!!

After dipping White Tailed Plover a couple of years ago in Scotland and after uming and arring about the seaforth bird this year, i decided to play it cool (unlike monkey who spent £85 in jungle juice and almost twelve hours in a car!) Sam Shippey and H find this stunning bird on the patch this morning, and what a bird!!!!

pic by Monkey

whats everybody looking at?

Rainham Yearlist - 136 White Tailed Plover

South West Filthy Twitching

Me, Jono and Bradders head down to Ham Wall nature reserve in somerset at 1am this morning after a great BBQ at H's, this was to be jono's third and final attempt! and was success at last as the bird gave several flight views over Loxton Marsh.

7am it was back on the road and on the road to Bowling green marsh (devon) in hope of seeing the Gull-billed tern present for several days now, and wasn't long before we were enjoying reasonable views of the bird feeding in the estuary.