Worldwide, wetlands are among the most species-rich habitats on our planet, home to a wealth of birds and other wildlife. Open water of varying depths, with emergent vegetation alongside mudflats bordered by diverse plant communities, including forest edge and grassland, typically make wetlands and adjacent habitat absolutely ideal homes for a high concentration of wildlife in a relatively small space. It's no coincidence that around the world, many of the nature reserves and preserves that have been set aside as protected habitat for wildlife are wetlands.
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| Singing Reed Bunting at Rainham Marshes |
In the UK, this protected habitat is often administered by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, or the Wildlife Trusts. (If you are in the UK, I highly recommend checking out the map tool on their respective websites to find
an RSPB reserve or
a Wildlife Trust nature reserve to visit near you! There are so many to choose from!)
As we planned our trip to England and Scotland this past June, I set out to find a wetland refuge that we could access from
London by train. While much of East Anglia is known for its amazing wetlands and birding opportunities, that part of the country was a little out of our way. Instead, I settled on
Rainham Marshes, an RSPB reserve along the River Thames not too far from London and just under a mile's walk from the Purfleet train station.
Rainham Marshes protects over 1,000 acres of wetland habitat in the Thames estuary, including shallow ponds, wet grassland, reedbeds, scrub and even a small patch of woodland. From the visitor center, a 2.5 mile gravel path leads visitors in a loop around the wetland, with stops at several excellent hides and viewing areas along the way. There is also a meandering path through the small woodland, and a longer trail along the edge of the tidally influenced River Thames.
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| Rainham Marshes |
The day we visited Rainham Marshes in early June was overcast and a little windier than I would have liked, but we still had a great day birding and managed to turn up 60 species of birds!
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| Black-headed Gulls (with a few Pied Avocets in the back left) |
In the wetlands themselves we spotted a large flock of Black-headed Gulls, with a few very special birds mixed in that I was most eager to see: Northern Lapwings and Pied Avocets!
Northern Lapwings are shorebirds, closely related to plovers, that breed in wetlands and wet grasslands across much of Europe and Asia. I think they are such beautiful birds, with their spikey crests, iridescent green plumage and big, wide wings that give them their distinct, somewhat floppy silhouette in flight. They also make a variety of very fun sounds! (Have a listen
here or
here.)
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| Northern Lapwing |
Pied Avocets are striking black-and-white shorebirds that have been adopted as the symbol of the RSPB. By the mid-19th century, hunting, collecting and habitat loss had caused this species to go extinct in the UK.
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| Pied Avocets |
Happily, in the 1940's Pied Avocets began to recolonize the southeast of England, beginning in Suffolk and spreading north and west. With the help of conservation efforts to restore the wetland habitat they need, these beautiful birds can now be found in wetlands along the east and southwest coast of England.
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| Pied Avocets |
A few wading birds along the edges of the wetland were the European cousins of familiar North American species. The Little Egret sports a thin jaunty plume that is distinct from that of North America's Snowy Egret, but the two species really are very similar.
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| Little Egret |
Europe's Grey Heron differs only slightly from North America's Great Blue Heron in a few details of size, bill proportion and coloring.
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| Grey Heron |
A few other shorebirds were unfortunately too distant for good photos. These species included Eurasian Curlew, Little Ringed Plover and Common Redshanks. The few ducks hanging out on and around the ponds included Common Pochard, Tufted Duck and Common Shelduck. June is not really the best season for shorebirds or ducks in the UK (or here in the US!) as most individuals move north to their breeding grounds during the brief summer months.
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| Little Grebe adult (right) with chick |
Grebes, however, which are not closely related to ducks, are true wetland birds that build their nests on floating mats of vegetation on shallow lakes and ponds with plenty of emergent vegetation. The UK is home to two species of grebes, the Little Grebe and the Great Crested Grebe, and we saw them both at Rainham Marshes.
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| Great Crested Grebe |
Reedbeds and stands of other types of vegetation along the wetland margins were home to a whole different cast of characters. One of the UK's most stunning - and elusive - small songbirds is the
Bearded Reedling, a five-inch-long bird with striking markings that prefers to stay hidden deep in reedbeds. I was able to get a few glimpses of this species after waiting quietly beside a likely reedbed for quite some time, but unfortunately, was unable to get any photos!
More obliging were the Common Reed Warblers, which can also be difficult to see well as they tend to stay hidden in the reeds. This one popped up into a nearby shrub, allowing much better looks! Though called a "warbler," Old World warblers are not closely related to the New World warblers we're familiar with in North America. And confusingly, European birds in a couple different families are all commonly referred to as warblers.
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| Common Reed Warbler |
The soft brown Common Reed Warbler above and the streaky Sedge Warbler below are two closely related species that seem to fill the ecological niche that in North America would be filled by the Marsh Wrens. Not only do they slightly resemble Marsh Wrens in size and coloring, they behave like them, flitting in and out of dense reeds, and also sound a bit like them too!
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| Sedge Warbler |
The next species we encountered along the wetland margins not only
seemed familiar, it was familiar! Though called a Sand Martin in my field guide to British birds, this is the same species as our North American Bank Swallow.
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| Bank Swallow/Sand Martin |
Another beautiful bird of reedbeds and wetland edges is the Reed Bunting, which we heard singing all around Rainham Marshes. Buntings are, in a sense, the Old World counterpart to North America's New World sparrows, though they have been separated into two different families.
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| Reed Bunting |
The shrubby areas around the marsh were filled with birds as well. This Greater Whitethroat is one of the UK's "leaf warblers," members of the warbler family Sylviidae.
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| Greater Whitethroat |
Linnets are finches of wilder habitats, particularly scrubby heathland. We saw this bird in a section of scrub along the path between the wetlands and the river.
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| Linnet |
As we made our way into the woodland section of the reserve, the species composition changed once again and we found ourselves encountering a handful of birds common in British parks, gardens, woodlands and hedgerows... all of which proved to be difficult to photograph against the dark sky!
The European Wren is a tiny bird with a big voice - similar to the Winter and Pacific Wrens of North America.
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| Eurasian Wren |
Another enthusiastic singer was the Eurasian Blackcap, yet another of the leaf warblers.
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| Eurasian Blackcap |
This Blue Tit was singing as well, a chickadee-like song that I learned often sounds surprisingly like the the first few notes of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony!
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| Eurasian Blue Tit |
Another chickadee relation, the Great Tit, is a common garden songbird found in many habitats across Europe.
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| Great Tit |
Interestingly, House Sparrows in the UK are in decline. Here in North America, we know these introduced sparrows as non-native birds of parking lots and other such unappealing habitats. Their boldness and unfussy eating habits have allowed them to spread into every corner and crevice of our continent, with the exception of far northern Canada and Alaska. Here, these aggressive little birds out-compete many of our native cavity nesting species.
With this stigma firmly attached, it was funny to me to see dedicated nest boxes that have been put up in the UK in hopes of helping to mitigate the House Sparrows' decline!
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| House Sparrow |
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