Recent Sightings
Up-to-date Sightings
Regular daily sightings from the reserve at RXwildlife website.
August 2010
Passage waders on the Beach Reserve/Harbour Farm during August included up to 380 Curlew, 150+ Dunlin and 60 Knot, with smaller numbers of Golden Plover and Grey Plover and the occasional Sanderling, while at Castle Water Lapwing made up the bulk, with up to 500 present.
July 2010
Taking stock of our breeding sea-birds it is evident it has been a very good year at Rye Harbour. After worries about the effects of high water levels at the start of the season, the main colonies on Ternery Pool and the Quarry produced around 3000 fledged Black-headed Gull, 1000 fledged Sandwich Tern, 300 fledged Common Tern and 250 Mediterranean Gull, our best haul ever.
June 2010
One of the best pieces of news this June has been the return of Little Tern as a breeding species to Rye Harbour after an absence of two years. After deploying decoys and sound recordings to attract the birds back, at least three pairs nested, with the first chicks hatching by the end of the month.
May 2010
May is usually the time when the breeding season really gets going at Rye Harbour and despite the slow start to the season this year, things are moving along quite nicely. On Ternery Pool the islands thronged with masses of Black-headed Gull chicks, with Mediterranean Gull, and the odd Sandwich Tern also, while young waders on the Beach Reserve included Lapwing, Ringed Plover and Redshank.
April 2010
The breeding season at Rye Harbour really gathered pace during April, and this month saw almost the last of our breeding summer visitors arrive, with the first Cuckoo on the 18th and the first Little Tern on the 21st. On the Beach Reserve Wheatear, Ringed Plover and Oystercatcher had all staked out their territories by the end of April, and on Ternery Pool around 2200 pairs of Black-headed Gull, 175 pairs of Mediterranean Gull and 400 pairs of Sandwich Tern were present towards the end of the month!
March 2010
Things really began to hot up on the reserve as we moved into the breeding season. By the end of the month the main sea-bird colony at Ternery Pool held 1500+ Black-headed Gull and 125 Mediterranean Gull, while up 300 Sandwich Tern and two Common Tern roosted on the Quarry.
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.
November 2009
Notable waterfowl sightings during November included regular Bittern, mainly at Castle Water or Narrow Pit, up to 26 Little Egret leaving the Castle Water roost on the 6th, and a Red-breasted Merganser on Ternery Pool on the 17th. In addition, a Goldeneye was present on Harbour Farm from the 16th, two Black-necked Grebe were on Long Pit on the 22nd, and, up to nine Pintail were on Castle Water later in the month.
October 2009
As with last month, October saw a wide selection of migrants, winter visitors and the tail-end of the summer visitors moving through. In terms of waders, the most obvious species were Lapwing, and Golden Plover, forming wheeling flocks over Castle Water and Flat Beach, though good numbers of Curlew were also present, their peak numbers recorded at overnight roosts on Flat Beach or Harbour Farm.
September 2009
With the combination of both winter and summer visitors and increasing numbers of passage migrants, September usually has a good range of species to offer, and this year was no exception. Hence Wheatear and Yellow Wagtail shared the reserve briefly with Whinchat, Stonechat and Redstart, while on the freshwater pits, numbers of Wigeon, Pochard and Teal increased steadily throughout the month.
