Rainham Marshes RSPB

After a great night out with our Son for his birthday we called in at Rainham, as we usually do on our way back to the Black Country time permitting. We spent about three hours doing the circular walk around the reserve.

As you might expect at this time of year it's very quiet all the birds have done their bit, the youngsters have fledged and the parents are recovering and hiding away as much as possible, getting ready to migrate or stocking up for the winter. Yes, only 139 days to Christmas as I write this!

Anyway I think the must abundant species on the reserve at the moment are Goldfinch, Starling and Coot! There were large flocks of Goldfinch and Starling zooming around the reserve, so they are the exception to what I have just said! I have just realised despite the large numbers I never got around to taking any snaps of them!

Upon further scanning there were quite a large number of Lapwings about including what looked like a fair amount of juveniles, so breeding for them on the reserve must have gone well.

Other birds showing well were Grey Heron and Little Egret:

So with birds apart from Coots and this Little Grebe

not posing these Marsh Frogs obliged:

Then of course there were plenty of Butterflies about, these two posed in front of the hide,
Comma:

 Peacock:

We also saw Speckled Wood, Common Blue, Large White (of course!) and others which we have no idea what they are!

We finished off sitting outside the visitor centre in glorious sunshine with a cup of coffee followed by an ice-cream, where these two Collared Doves posed:

Our Rainham day list:
Black-headed Gull
Black-tailed Godwit
Blue Tit
Carrion Crow
Collared Dove
Coot
Cormorant
Gadwall
Goldfinch
Great Tit
Greenfinch
Grey Heron
Greylag Goose
Herring Gull
Hobby
House Sparrow
Kestrel
Lapwing
Lesser Black-backed Gull
Little Egret
Little Grebe
Magpie
Mallard
Moorhen
Mute Swan
Pochard
Reed Warbler
Shelduck
Shoveler
Snipe
Starling
Swallow
Woodpigeon
Wren