Welcome to the Buteo Wildlife blog, a record of some of the wildlife that we have been seeing and occasional identification articles that will hopefully be useful for those trying to learn about wildlife.

If you enjoy reading this blog, join us on one of our tours - days and weekends looking for wildlife. Visit our website for details: www.buteowildlife.co.uk
Note that tours with clients may not always feature prominently on this blog because we are unlikely to have time for photography when out with clients - and walls of text don't tend to make the most interesting posts. If there is time for a few snatched photos they may not always be of the highest quality - but we'll use them anyway!


To try and keep posts in chronological order they may sometimes be given earlier dates/times than when they are actually posted. Apologies, for this - it's not meant to mislead anyone (and we will try to avoid this happening too often).

20 January 2013

Winter at Rainham (13th January 2013).

The monthly WeBS count at RSPB Rainham Marshes produced the highest wildfowl counts of the winter so far. Pintail numbered thirty, many of which were extremely smart drakes in full plumage. During the early part of the count the tide was quite low and so a lot of the ducks were on the River Thames. I did, however, manage to count over 750 Wigeon making the overall count for that species in excess of a thousand.

There was a pair of Stonechats by the Ken Barratt hide and other passerines of interest included a dozen Skylarks and three Rock Pipits along the foreshore

By the afternoon the tide was lapping the Victorian seawall and waders had come onto the reserve to escape the high water. Purfleet Scrape, in front of the visitor centre, had 19 Curlew, 15 Ringed Plover, 160 Dunlin and two Black-tailed Godwits. An adult Caspian Gull was identified on this area and there were approximately 2,200 Lapwing and a dozen Common Snipe on the reserve.

A female Marsh Harrier was hunting over Wennington Marsh and a Peregrine Falcon was perched on one of the pylons alongside the A13. The last birds of interest were about thirty Ring-necked Parakeets flying over the car park as I was about to leave.

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