A sunny morning at Oare. 27th January 07

It was a glorious sunny Saturday morning at Oare marshes in Kent. The grounds were still quite soggy from all the rains but the sun was shining and we were off for a nice long walk.

The wind was however quite brisk and the air had a winters chill to it. Hands in pockets were certainly the order of the day to stop fingers from turning numb in the cold

Mick went one better and really made me laugh when he dressed like Scott of the Artic. Still it kept his head and ears nice and warm so he was quite happy.

We stopped by the stream and watched a Coot diving for food. We have noticed that when the Coots dive, they always pull up large beakfull’s of weed

If you look closely you will notice that they seem to swallow the weed then regurgitate it. We did a bit of research on this and it appears that the coots eat the seeds and small insects that are attached to the weed, not the weed itself

We walked on, following the pathway. The scenery was so peaceful with nice yachts moored nearby, bobbing serenely up and down with the water lapping gently against their sides

But what’s this! Is that a car stranded down in the River, Mick asked. It certainly sems like it. Maybe the high winds we had last week were worse here by the River

But No. it was just and illusion. The car was parked on the slipway whilst its owner was aboard his boat. It was not apparent the slipway was hidden in a depression

There were some signs of real wind damage though. This small boat was damaged very badly and from the broken ropes, appears to have been pulled from its moorings and smashed against the rocks during the winds

We continued on our walk and came across a Little Egret fishing. We watched as he slowly waded along the shallow parts of the stream taking long slow steps so as not to disturb any nearby fish.

With a quick dart of his head, the Egret caught a fish and quickly ran off to devour his meal. If you click on this picture, you will get a better view of the fish he caught.

A loud cawing noise overhead alerted us to a Rook that was flying slowly past. His mean look, undulating wings and large beak making him look like a battleship of the skies

A more pleasant chirping was a little flock of Redshanks that took off and skimmed along the water in a tight formation before landing on a nearby mudbank

Our walk was nearly at an end. So with one last long look at the golden coloured marshlands we made our way back home

We hope that you enjoyed comming with us on our walk. More pictures can be found in our galleries at www.voinapics.co.uk

Steve & Mick

After the winds and rain 20th January 2007

We have had strong winds and heavy rains for several days now, Saturday the winds had died down and the sun looked like it was trying to peek through the clouds so off to Elmley we went. Unfortunately when we got there is started to rain again so we sheltered ourselves hoping that it would blow over. Mr Blackbird had the same idea, as we spotted him sheltering in the bushes away from the rain

The wind picked up a bit and blew the rain clouds across the marshlands. You can see that the residence across from the River Swale are now getting a good drenching

Once the rain clouds had passed the sun re-appeared to bathe the marshland in a warm glow. You can see that the little streams running through Elmley are nicely full now and the ground is starting to get back to it’s normal soaked state after the summer drought.

Mick took advantage of the unexpected sunshine to get a bit of colour to his shiny head

I was not so brave. Although the sun was out the air was still chilly and the wind was picking up again. A sure sign that the rain would soon be back.

Meanwhile we joined the little Sparrows and enjoyed the sunshine. There are several feeders near the RSPB house and there is always a nice collection of well fed Sparrows singing to each other in the nearby bushes

The Coots were also enjoying the high water line and warm sunshine; they were so happy that they did not object to use watching them at all. Most unusual as they normally hide in the reeds

This young coot swam quite close to say hello, and if you look closely you can see that he almost seems to be smiling.

We walked a little ways into the reserve. You can only stay on the roadway so as not to disturb the birds on the Marshes. But if you use binoculars you can see the birds resting out near the streams. In this picture, you can also see one of the pipes that the RSPB was using to help flood the marshlands from the River during the drought.

As we watched, the flock of birds was startled by something and took off en mass. At first we were not sure what was going on as we were far to far away for them to even notice us.

Then the flock formed itself into a ball. Now we knew what was going on. A bird of prey was flying low skimming the plains and the birds were forming themselves into a protective ball. The Bird of prey rocketed upwards through the ball but was not successful in a kill. The flock scattered and the bird of prey flew off. We are sorry to say though that we were watching this all too intently and it happened so fast that we did not have time to take any more pictures

Instead we will take this opportunity to show you a couple pictures of Elmley in the Sunshine.


We hope that you enjoyed todays trip with us. More pictures can be found in our galleries at www.voinapics.co.uk

Steve & Mick