Oare Marshes

Hi again all you wildlife lovers and nature explorers, and welcome back to another gripping instalment of Invicta Zoologia!

This time I will be moving coastwards and showing you all some of the sights I have experienced around the Kent Wildlife Trust managed reserve at Oare Marshes.

Located by the Swale, just North of Faversham, this designated Local Nature Reserve comprises one of the few grazing marshes left in Kent and is important to an array of common and rarer wetland bird species in the area, including avocets (Recurvirostra avosetta), lapwings (Vanellus vanellus) and marsh harriers (Circus aeruginosus). For those with the foresight to bring binoculars or telephoto zoom lenses, the adjacent Swale is also frequently busy with common seals (Phoca vitulina) over on the sandbanks.

Clear water of a ditch along
 the marshes

An abandoned boat on the coastal
 section of the reserve

As mentioned, these marshes are located along the north coast of Kent, and as such are regularly visited by the usual suspects of that kind of habitat. Particularly in species such as herring (Larus argentatus), black-headed (Chroicocephalus ridibundus) and common (Larus canus) gulls, in such a natural environment these birds can be quite a welcome peaceful sight as they go about their daily business.

Black headed gull scavenging
 in the sand

Perched gull waiting for his
 time to strike

All along the edges of the marshes though, you can see reed bed lined ditches which, along with adjacent grassy patches, are havens for herpetofauna such as marsh frogs (Pelophylax ridibundus) and grass snakes (Natrix natrix), insects such as butterflies (e.g. the common blue (Polyommatus icarus)), moths (e.g. cinnabars (Tyria jacobaeae) and vapourers (Orgyia antiqua)), damselflies (e.g. Emerald (Lester sponsa) and common blue (Enallagma cyathigerum)), dragonflies (e.g. four-spotted chasers (Libellula quadrimaculata)) and perhaps most prominently hidden mammals such as the protected European water vole (Arvicola amphibius).

Painted lady caterpillar

Caterpillar of the 5-spot burnet moth

Common blue damselflies in tandem

Male vapourer moth climbing a leaf

Common blue feeding

Marsh frog partially submersed

Four-spotted chaser clinging to a reed

Common blue damselfly perched

On two of the occasions that I have visited the site in fact, I was helping out the Kent Wildlife Trust's Water for Wildlife project with surveys for these fantastic critters, looking for their little piles of 45 degree cut vegetation feeding signs and latrines to try and estimate their numbers in the area.

This project is an amazing endeavour by the Kent Wildlife Trust using SITA and Environment Agency funding to foster and monitor water vole populations, control the invasive American Mink (Neovison vison) and restore suitable vole habitat across the North Kent marshes. For any of you wishing to learn more, you can read up on the project on the Kent Wildlife Trust website:

http://www.kentwildlifetrust.org.uk/conservation/projects-and-campaigns/water-wildlife

Myself and Louise Allen of the KWT
surveying for water voles - Photo credit
to Terry Whittaker

Myself and Louise Allen of the KWT surveying
for water voles - Photo credit
to Terry Whittaker

Sun drenched meadow beside a ditch
we were surveying

Back onto Oare marshes specifically again, across the breadth of the area are banks of grassland, home to rabbits and both roaming Highland Cattle and Konik horses, with their grazing keeping vegetation under control. These animals do their job wonderfully, and represent some of the most natural examples of their species that you can find in the UK.

The central attraction of the marshes to most though are likely the large water bodies, bustling with communities of wading and feeding birds. Across these areas myself I have seen examples of little egrets (Egretta garzetta), grey herons (Ardea cinerea), avocets, moorhen (Gallinula chloropus), mute swans (Cygnus olor), mallards (Anas platyrhynchos), Emden geese, greylag geese (Anser anser), coot (Fulica atra), cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo) and tufted duck (Aythya fuligula). Even so, mine is far from an exhaustive list, with the keen birder armed with a pair of binoculars bound to find many more.

Little egret wading across the water

A pair of avocets searching for food

A moorhen forages down the edge of a ditch

Part of the Konik herd at the marshes

Mute swan gliding

Heron amongst the reeds

Highland cattle camouflaged in the grass

I will hopefully be able to get out to some more reserves and hotspots around Kent soon but for now that's all folks! I hope you found this instalment interesting, and that maybe I have contributed at least slightly to showing just how amazing the wildlife of the county can be, if you look for it.

See you all next time!