Discover our Wetland Wildlife
Rye Harbour Nature Reserve is a mosaic of habitats beside the sea with shingle, saltmarsh, sand dunes, rivers, pits, grazing marsh, reedbeds and farmland. Full of wildlife for you to discover.
News
13 March 2010
40th Anniversary
The Nature Reserve’s first warden, Dave Flumm, started work on 15th March 1970, and reading his annual report it is clear how much progress has been made for the reserve’s wildlife and its visitors. The report is now available from this website on the publication page.
Read more »1 March 2010
February was wet
From Hastings Met. Station
February 2010
(normal value in brackets)
Sunshine 74.4 hours (84.3)
Mean maximum temp. 6.2 C (7.1)
Mean minimum temp. 1.4 C (2.4)
Rainfall 123.7 mm. (52.7)
Gale or stronger 0 day (1.0)
Snow lying 8 days (2.4)
15 February 2010
Wildlife Festival
The dates for the 6th Annual Wildlife Festival in the Hastings-Rye-Dungeness area are 29th May to 6th June 2010. There will be activities at Hastings Country Park, Pett Level, Rye Harbour Nature Reserve, East Guldeford Level, Camber, Dungeness RSPB and the Romney Marsh Visitor Centre.
Click here for more detail
9 January 2010
Bittern influx
There have been many Bittern on view at Rye Harbour during the recent icy weather. Click here for images.
Read more »1 January 2010
December - sunny but wet!
From Hastings Met. Station.
(normal value in brackets)
December 2009
Sunshine 82.8 hours (57.5)
Mean maximum temp. 7.6 C (7.9)
Mean minimum temp. 2.4 C (3.)
Rainfall 108.4 mm. (79.8)
Gale or stronger 0 days (1.8)
CLICK FOR LIVE WEATHER
Recent Sightings
February 2010
One of the coldest and snowiest spells of weather in the area for many years brought large numbers of ducks, at least six Bittern, and a up to of nine Smew to the reserve. At the other extreme, this month also saw displaying Ringed Plover and Great Crested Grebe, the appearance of the first Mediterranean Gull and Black-headed Gull on Ternery Pool, and the first sightings of Peacock and Small Tortoiseshell butterflies.
January 2010
The run of good numbers of waterfowl on the reserve continued into the New Year as the cold snap persisted into January. For instance, a count at Castle Water on 5th of the month found 900 Wigeon, 730 Teal, 400 Mallard, 325 Gadwall and 290 Shoveler concentrated in the relatively small areas of open water, while Long Pit held 275 Pochard on the 7th and 144 Tufted Duck on the 5th.
December 2009
December is often the best month to see good numbers of water fowl, especially when as happened this month, there was a spell of cold weather, with counts including up to 560 Teal, 400 Wigeon, 243 Gadwall, 200 Shoveler and 150 Tufted Duck. In addition, up to nine Pintail were present at Castle Water, five Goldeneye were on Long Pit and Harbour Farm on the 13th, up to three Smew were recorded at Castle Water and a Scaup was present on Ternery Pool and Castle Pit.
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