Elmley Owltastic

 Saturday, Margie and I headed to Elmley Nature reserve on Sheppey in Kent, we have visited several times in the past and it rarely disappoints. It's eight quid each to get in (not £6 as they have it on Birdguides) and the opening hours are a bit pants but it is a fantastic reserve, the main draw at this time of year are the Owls! Unfortunately the Long-eared Owls that have been roosting near the car park seem to have moved on and though the Little Owl has been seen in it's regular place we couldn't rustle it up!!   The long drive from the entrance to the car park, was quieter than usual, plenty of Lapwings and some distant Marsh Harriers, a couple of Hares and as we neared the Carpark a Barn Owl was sat on the fence! Sadly the light to start with was very poor so pics are not as good as they could have been

Lapwing: They seem to ignore the car so can be very close!

Marsh Harrier

Barn Owl

Hare

We parked up, the car park was already nearly full, and walked down to the old school to try for the Little Owl, a Sparrowhawk gave a flypast, hotly pursued by a Crow and a flock of Long-tailed Tits flew across the path in front of us!

Long-tailed Tits

Sparrowhawk

Crow chasing Sprawk

No sign of the Owl so we headed on down to the Reedbed, a few other Birders here, Beardies were on the menu, we were here for about 20 minutes and had fabulous views of the Birds!

Bearded Tit country by Margie

Bush in a ditch by Margie

Flyover Mute Swan

The first Beardie to show, a female!

Wigeon flyover

Bearded Tit, Male

We dragged ourselves away, lucky for you😆and followed the coastal path leaving the crowd behind, even though there were lots of people present the reserve is big enough to find some space! Some pics by Margie below

Old and new industry

The foreshore

Saltmarsh

Love these Reeds

This was one of my favourite parts of the day, wide open spaces, despite all the human activity all around, absolute peace! Not so many birds about here. Lots of waders on the banks of the river, mainly Redshanks and Godwits, but also an Avocet, Grey Plover and some Dunlin, too far away to get decent pics. There was also a Little Grebe, a Great Crested Grebe and a few Wigeon on the river, couple of Reed Buntings, another couple of Beardies and a Robin the main things seen! We also had a Peregrine fly along the river, causing havoc, sadly to quick for my poor photography skills. There was a flyover by a male Marsh Harrier and 2 Buzzards there was another raptor with them picture below, was much smaller than the other Buzzards, but having looked at the pics, I'm fairly sure it is just a small Buzzard so won't mention my flights of fancy when I saw it live!😀

Oystercatcher, Bar-tailed Godwits and Grey plover

Avocet

Reed Bunting

Beardie missing his tail

Marsh Harrier

Think this is a Buzzard, but was much smaller than the other two present 

Robin

We headed back to the car park, another Birder had told us there were three Short-eared Owls on show and there were! Sitting in  the grass doing not much!

Two of the three not doing much!

We hung around for a bit, but they weren't going anywhere soon so we headed off towards the screen to view the water, this walk gives some of the best views of the reserve and Margie filled her boots, the sun was also starting to show, which was handy!

A few Wigeon and a couple of Pintails!

Think Margie captured the big sky, big views feel of the place with those! Most of the birds of which there were thousands were quite distant, a very large flock of what looked like Golden Plover went up in the very far distance and there were regular, flushings or Lapwings, Curlew, Godwits Starlings, and various Wildfowl as Raptors, mainly Buzzards and Marsh Harriers, patrolled the wide open spaces. 

Curlew

Lapwing

Black-headed Gull

Black-tailed Godwits

Wigeon

We headed back up to the car parks, the Owls still weren't doing much!

SEO chilling

While we waited for the Owls get their groove on, I set up the scope, we sat on a bench and scanned the reserve below us, plenty of Raptors about mainly Marsh Harriers, a couple of Buzzards and a Kestrel was knocking about, the best of this bit was a Merlin then flew in and sat on a Bush, very distant so the pic isn't up to much !! But looked a peach through the scope!

Merlin, you're gonna have to trust me on this one!

Kestrel

A couple of Shorties appeared in the distance and started hunting the rough grass! Our ones just sat there looking bored!

Short-eared Owl

Loved the way the sun goes through the wings! Meanwhile our ones were looking active, hitting the fence posts and doing pre-flight maintenance, turns out there were six not three!! Making eight in view with the two still hunting in the distance.

Then it was go,go,go!! 

Some of them were still chilling!

With time marching on and 4pm rapidly approaching we sadly had to leave!! Fantastic day watching these Owls flying about, turning on a sixpence to dive into the grass in search of a meal!! Highly recommend a trip to see the Owls, though I would go fairly sharpish as with the nights drawing out the Owls will fly later and later and with the 4 o'clock shut time it will probably all happen behind closed doors and of course the Owls will be heading off to breed in the next few weeks! Would check the opening times as well as it isn't open every day! The whole reserve is fabulous and very well run, wish it was a bit closer as I would be there a lot more.