Yesterday travelled down to North Kent to explore some of the fantastic sites along the River Medway with Keith
Our morning stop was Riverside Country Park near Gillingham. We started at Copperhouse Lane and walked east along the river. The tide was already almost at it’s high point and only a few small islands were left for the roosting birds. These included Redshank, Black-tailed Godwit, Little Egret and Lapwing. A medium sized falcon, either a Hobby or a Kestrel, flew off from one of the Islands but was only briefly seen in silhouette, so remained conclusively unidentified.
From the river we diverted inland to look over Eastcote meadow. We stopped to look for Little Owl on the abandoned riding school, but were not able to see one. We did however hear and see a Green Woodpecker, but otherwise it was not very productive.
Returning to the river we continued on towards the visitor centre, our morning coffee stop.
Near a small pond I was fortunate to get a brief sighting of a Lesser Whitethroat flitting through the bushes and we found a number of Willow Emerald damselflies. We also saw a group of Ivy Bees, my first sighting this year of these late emerging solitary bees.
After our coffee stop we made our way out to the end of Horrid Hill, originally a small island in the Medway but later joined to the mainland by a causeway when a cement works was established there at the beginning of the 20th century. Only a few walls remain today and this has become a good place to observe birds out on the river.
As we walked along we could hear the calls of Sandwich Turns, and eventually saw one carrying a small fish in its beak as it flew back towards what remained of the islands in the river. Some more were later seen fishing in the river. On the far end we were fortunate to see a Wall butterfly, my first sighting of this species in 2026.
As Lunchtime drew near we made our way back to the Visitor Centre, but as we were going through the bushy area on the Island Keith spotted an Osprey flying east over our heads. As we were surrounded by trees and bushes it was soon lost to sight and by the time we reached an open area, we were unable to relocate it . It was later reported in the afternoon a few miles to the east.
A good morning’s nature watching
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