During February half term, some of the Rye Harbour Nature Reserve ‘Guide in a Hide’ volunteers became Guides on a Train!
Children travelled for just £1, and really enjoyed looking through our binoculars to tick off what they saw on the worksheets provided.
We spotted 33 species of birds, including Red Kite, Lapwing, Great White Egret, Grey Heron, Little Egret, Moorhen, Buzzard and amazingly, through a train window, a tiny Goldcrest!
Several people remarked on how friendly and helpful everyone was and what a great idea this was. One lady messaged to say “Amazing!! The kids really enjoyed it, particularly my daughter Lyra! She loves birds. She asked for a bird camera for Christmas and loves seeing the birds we get in the garden every day.”
Lyra took it all very seriously, amusing her fellow passengers by exclaiming “look everyone, there is a Pheasant…. tick it off!”
We were thrilled to bits with the fantastic comments from the children and how interested and enthusiastic they were.
Hopefully we have inspired some of those children to continue to watch and enjoy birds – and maybe we’ll see them again soon…at Rye Harbour Nature Reserve!
A most welcome sunny day at last for our Guide in a Hide event today, and visitors were plentiful!
Over 220 people came along and were treated to close views of many birds. 42 species were seen today with the Spoonbill taking centre stage once again. A Peregrine Falcon caused a stir, a Grey Heron just stood still, watching us and the incoming tide, the 300+ Pintail looked stunningly elegant and two close Redshank made the children laugh as they chased each other around.
Thank you to everyone who came along! Next event is 25 February 10am until 3pm. See you there…
It was with a sense of relief that we could greet the New Year birds without roaring wind or hammering rain! About 27 Friends met up in the car park for a circuit around Flat Beach led by James, who warned us that we’d not be allowed home for lunch until at least 50 species had been found.
Hardly out of the car park, we noticed a couple of bigger birds with Starlings in the tree-tops – Fieldfares. This winter thrush comes down in the evening to roost at Castle Water after a day spent foraging windfalls in hinterland orchards but is rarely seen around the village. A single Mistle Thrush also rattled over – no cheering song this time.
Very quickly we found a flock of Brent Geese close to the path, then more flew in to join them till there were maybe 70 – an exceptionally large number for the reserve. Out on the horizon, however, long lines were passing up-Channel, already shifting back towards Siberia – a tiny fraction of the 91,000 which winter in Britain. Rye Harbour lacks the estuarine Eelgrass which is their preferred food so we’re lucky to have a small group which makes do with the saltmarsh.
Also present in exceptional numbers are Pintail, of which around 80 have recently been counted. Their distinctive, attenuated silhouettes and the white necks of the drakes could easily be picked out in flight, even when among many hundreds of other Mallard, Wigeon, Shoveler & Teal taking flight at the arrival of a Marsh Harrier high overhead.
Two uncommon birds were close to the path: the long-staying Spoonbill, easy enough to pick out but often not doing much, and a female Red-breasted Merganser preening on the water’s edge.
Beyond them the islands were starting to get crowded with waders: Oystercatchers, Dunlin, Sanderling, Grey Plover pushed off their foreshore feeding grounds where they were kept on the move by holidaying humans before being evicted by the incoming tide. As we walked along the Haul Road, silvery mixed flocks were rushing in over our heads and a group of Golden Plovers – probably not from the beach – included an individual with belly already dappled dark with breeding plumage.
As usual there were dozens of Skylarks, several Stonechats, a few Meadow Pipits (and much-too-subtle Rock Pipits along the riverside), but once out on the shingle you leave behind many familiar species and even back towards the village we failed to track down Blue or Great Tits.
We had a competition for who could most closely guess the number of species noticed by at least two of the group. Two people guessed correctly that it had come out to 53 but no sooner had the group dispersed than a Sparrowhawk was hassled by a Magpie over the golf course and then the presence was flagged of a Golden Pheasant on the grass close to the reserve gate! This glowing red and yellow bird, escaped from a nearby collection, had been noticed previously in the car park. Not from round here, as they say, but nonetheless an unexpected explosion of colour on an already darkening lunch time.
My goodness, our guides in the hide were busy today! 132 people came along in just three hours; many locals and many visitors from London and Kent.
It was wonderful to show people large numbers of our winter ducks like Pintail, Wigeon and Teal, and it was amazing that 70-80 Brent Geese could almost hide themselves in the saltmarsh. Other highlights were Spoonbill, Red-breasted Merganser and a Peregrine flying through. Fast!
We met some lovely people today. Thank you so much for coming along – your interest in the wildlife and smiles when you see it really make it all worthwhile!
Some highlights from Sunday’s Friends’ walk: Bright, low sunlight & chilly wind.
1) Spoonbill still on Salt Pool – head down & sweeping alongside a Little Egret – darting & stabbing.
2) A dashing fly-past by a juvenile Peregrine Falcon, probably the same which had notoriously hunted down a Kingfisher a day or two previously, probably regretting it later since they are reputed to taste foul (research indicates that Bee-eaters are less revolting and Wrynecks the tastiest of all).
3) Still on bright colours – the vivid orange Willows alongside the gravel pits are Coralbark Salix alba “Britzensis”, a German cultivar from c1878.
4) Three Red-legged Partridges, also non-native, originating from birds introduced for shooting, very hard to see as they creep about on the shingle ridges.
5) On mirror-like sand, shrinking with the advancing tide, hundreds of small waders down from the Arctic, making the most of fast-fading feeding opportunities: Dunlin, flanked by larger Grey Plovers, with a couple of silvery Sanderling chasing the incoming ripples.
111 people came along to Guide in a Hide to see some birds; it was great to meet you! William enjoyed some one-to-one bird watching with Christine and then Evie joined in too! Trudi showed us some excellent skill with her little binoculars and really enjoyed ticking 13 birds off of her checklist. Visitors enjoyed close views of Redshank, Skylark, Linnet, Meadow Pipit and Goldfinch. And, as the tide started to come in, Grey Plover, Knot, Oystercatcher and many Dunlin flew in to join the many winter ducks. Our last Guide in a Hide of the year is on 29th December. You will find us in and around Gooders Hide from 10am until 1pm. Please note the time change.
We had a good turn-out of 16 for today’s Friends’ walk to Castle Water, in weather that was grey and cool but clear and very still so that sounds could easily be heard, be they birds, church bells, Sunday motorbikes or the trumpeting of the Marshlink as it approached Rye Station.
In order to reach that part of the reserve, we have to walk for 15 minutes up Harbour Road, which I tend to see as birdless, so sometimes punctuate that part of the trip with information about the village and its history. However this dismissal is unjustified, for there are quite lot of birds to be seen. Apart from marshland species like Gulls and Waders passing overhead, and garden birds like Sparrows, Robins and Blackbirds ,there was this morning a Mistle Thrush broadcasting its rich contralto to the whole neighbourhood from the top of the tallest Sycamore. We hear it every spring, when it can still be heard well down the track to the Discovery Centre, then after a few months’ pause, it sings again from late autumn, really getting under way from the solstice.
Black Redstart
A little further on, a Robin-shaped bird attracted attention as it perched on the roof of an asbestos shed in an overgrown yard. Though anonymous in silhouette, the game was given away when its tail quivered, revealing it as a Black Redstart, a bird which breeds right the way from central China to W Europe, where it finds the Channel a disincentive. So once you cross the water, you can find it in almost every town and farm, but at RHNR we see them only on migration or in winter. It is a scarce breeder in England, preferring industrial and derelict sites to the (similar) rocky mountain habitat where it can be found right up to the snow-line, and a small number of pairs can be found between Cliff End and Hastings Town Centre. By the way, this one wasn’t Black but grey, a female or young male.
While we were watching this little bird, showing its red tail as it flickered around the black anchor across the road, there were Long-tailed Tits and Goldcrests foraging in the roadside Sycamores and Golden Plovers racing overhead.
Black-necked Grebe
We saw or heard 62 species – see the list below (not everyone sees everything) – including Marsh Harriers, Buzzards, Sparrowhawks, a Peregrine, Ravens, flocks of Fieldfares just in from Scandinavia and masses of wildfowl at Castle Water including Shelduck – just back from moulting on safe sand-banks in Heligoland – and a Black-necked Grebe, first noted a couple of days ago. If it is the same individual – and its habits suggest so – it first arrived in March 2021 then sat in very much the same spot for the rest of the year, moulting into glamorous breeding plumage without finding a mate to be impressed by it. The bird remained throughout 2022 until this spring when it vanished – till now. Where has it been over the summer? Did it find love? This is another bird which can be found nesting from just outside Calais right into Central Asia but is scarce in England – mostly in the E & Central areas. It’s another example of how Rye Harbour is On The Edge.
Marsh Harrier
These walks are a convivial way to share information, knowledge and skills with everyone finding something to contribute, from an extra (maybe better) pair of eyes to the latest useful app or experience from different regions. Leaders do their best to make sure everyone sees or hears the birds, learns how to look for and identify them, understands what the birds are doing, where they’re from and where, if anywhere, they’re going.
Despite the awful weather forecast, a group of intrepid SWT volunteers who are all members of The Friends, braved the wind and the rain to show any visible birdlife to 26 members of the public visiting the Discovery Centre and the Gooders Hide.
Following recent vandalism, the Gooders Hide no longer has a door, and as the windows had been left open overnight, it was as wet inside as outside!
Despite curtailing the event early due to the conditions, 25 species of birds were recorded, including a Spoonbill.
Every year since 2016, The Friends have laid a poppy wreath on the memorial they created at the site where Flt/Lt Harry Hamilton was killed when his Hurricane was shot down during the Battle of Britain. (See Harry’s Story)
The memorial is situated 200m SE of Camber Castle, beneath a dome of Oak trees originating from a single sapling planted by Canadian troops in memory of their compatriot shortly after the crash.
Paul Nash – The Rye Marshes, East Sussex (oil on canvas)
Jim Northover came to talk to us about the artist Paul Nash and his association with the Rye area. Paul Nash, who was also well known as a war artist, writer and photographer lived in Rye for a relatively short period 1930-32, however, Rye and the surrounding area heavily influenced his work.
Jim who has a background as a designer, has been fascinated by Paul Nash and has gone to great lengths to research this topic. He gave us an excellent talk which was very well received by the audience and this excerpt from an email afterwards sums up the talk very nicely.
“I’ve never understood Paul Nash’s work and his relevance to our local landscape but the speaker brought his paintings to life in a most remarkable way. This was a brilliant afternoon.”
