We had a wonderful spring breeding season this year, through good water levels on the marshes providing huge amounts of the all-important ‘edge’. Our ‘edges’ are the exposed muddy patches created as water evaporates as temperatures rise in the Spring and Summer. This process drives the marshes' ecology providing plentiful invertebrate life at the base of our food chain, which is then exploited by many species, especially our ground nesting birds.

We also saw significant indicators of climate change with the earliest recorded hatching of our ubiquitous lapwing on 5th April, which is 10 days earlier than 2001-10 records on average.

Marsh Harriers

This species of raptor was down to a single breeding pair in the 1970’s and has recovered spectacularly with 14 pairs breeding this year, fledging 25 young. Marsh harriers are our apex predator and will prey upon a wide variety of birds and mammals. They need mature reedbeds to thrive and our 40-year-old wilding experiment at ‘the brickfields’, a former Victorian brick making factory, has produced an incredible habitat hosting 3 breeding pairs of harriers along with a pair of very ‘showy’ bittern, another predator making a strong revival across wetland England in 2024, water rail and bearded reedlings.

Oystercatchers

On the marshes, it has been an outstanding year for oystercatchers, a very loud and recognisable wading bird with a black and white body and bright orange beak. Our local population has declined over the past 20 years, likely due to industrial scale dredging for cockles by Dutch trawlers off the Kent coast. This has now stopped and this year we recorded a fantastic 104 breeding pairs, more than double 2023.

Shoveler and Pochard

These rare breeding ducks both increased in numbers, all importantly fledged over one chick per brood each. Elmley now supports 8% of the UK’s entire population of breeding shoveler ducks and 7% of pochard which is amazing in this little island off the North coast of Kent/in the Thames Estuary, amazing considering we are 0.01%/0.005% of the land in the UK

Owls

Ever popular our owls tend to winter at Elmley and only Little and Barn Owls breed. This year we had a record number of barn owls with 5 pairs which each had two broods fledging over 30 young barn owls. We ring these owls so we can learn how they spread out across Kent, when caught or found, and hopefully survive for many years.

Three pairs of little owls were joined by an amazing first for us. The first sightings of SEOs in May was unusual as they normally depart at the end of April to return to their northern breeding grounds. Sightings continued and our brilliant surveyors identified four territories. Two pairs were then confirmed with young and following weeks of observation 5 juvenile SEO fledged! It was a delightful sight for us all and many visitors, learning to fly and hunt around the hay meadows of Kingshill Farm.

Ever more elusive are our regular pair of long-eared owls which are a rare sight until late summer when the pair reemerged as a trio perching around our Summer Pizza Shack at Kingshill Farm.

The abundance of owls has been supported by an abundant food supply. After 13 months of consistent rainfall and a very mild winter, creating ideal conditions for our voles and field mice to thrive.

By Gareth Fulton, Elmley Nature Reserve Manager