Rainham Marshes
I love going out with my camera and plan days away. Inevitably the weather is not always blue skies and sunny. This was my first time here and I was early, the RSPB sanctuary was not yet open. I had heard quite a bit about this nature reserve. It nestles between the M25 and a rubbish tip of mountainous proportions. So I headed around the perimeter. Almost immediately there was some bushes absolutely covered in sparrows, all fluffed up against the cold.
A little further along the path and I spotted a kestrel, who just posed and allowed me to come fairly close with my camera, and jumped down to a different bush just meters away. She let me take loads of photos. I was still doing my happy dance, when a fellow photographer who broke the news that whilst not tame, Kirsty loves posing and does so for everyone. A little deflated, maybe, but I am still in love with the photos that I took of her.
Once inside the reserve, I was not in the slightest disappointed with the birdlife. Lots of stunning little garden birds, flying wildly and singing loudly around a feeding station. There are four hides around the pools so that you can watch the huge variety of birds, native and visiting waterfowl. I managed to spot a rather rare Spoonbill, just at the limits of my long lens.
Its only 2.4miles around but if you spend time in each of the hides then it can take you almost all day to get round, especially, if you’re hiding from cold winds and drizzle. After leaving one of the hides, I spent some confused time looking for a rare ‘water owl’ only to be told that I’d misheard and should be looking for a ‘water rail’, I t didn’t find one of those either. My birding credentials severely compromised.
There are a great number of ducks and geese, most of which I can’t name, but they all seem very much at home snoozing and grazing in the fields. There are a couple of coots arguing in the shallows and a heron striding majestically in one of the pools. Even a pheasant wanders through. There is a small deceit of lapwings, distinctive with their emerald green backs and dark crest and crown.
The marshes are carefully managed to provide perfect conditions for wildlife. Cattle graze and the water levels are managed to create a patchwork of clump wet grassland and pools. Some areas of tall grass and scrub are left unmanaged to provide hunting grounds for birds of prey. It is this area that provides my favourite image of the day.
There is evidence of people in this area since pre-history, more recently however, the war department created a rifle range in 1906 and there are skeletons of the target areas dating from 1915. Just as it was time to go home, the sun broke through the clouds. It lit the whole area and the long grasses look as if they had been forged from copper. In fact the whole image has a metallic feel. The sun is silver and the clouds have a heavy iron look about them, the foreground, bronze and gold.
As I leave there is a robin who cheekily sings in the bushes and doesn’t fly off when I approach. I find some left over crumbs from a cereal bar I’d eaten earlier in the day in my pocket and offer to them in my hand. To my surprise, he jumps onto my fingers and nibbles at the crumbs. Regrettably far too close to photograph, so you’ll have to take my word for it. There is always a downside to going to these places on my own.
