Meeting up at 5am in Cliffe church car park may not be everyone’s idea of a good morning out, but 7 others joined me despite storm Hannah forecasted earlier in the week. We started the morning with clear skies and the songs of blackbird and wren from the car park. Sunrise was only 24 minutes […]
After the thunder storms of Saturday night it was a relief to wake up to much brighter weather on Sunday morning. Ten members of the group arrived with eager anticipation of migrants with nightingale and turtle dove high on the list. The site of Conyer is an old brick works and I was […]
Waking up at 4am is not everyone’s idea of weekend enjoyment but that was 9 of us did last Sunday to enjoy the dawn chorus at Cliffe Pools RSPB reserve. With sunrise at 5:30am it was still a dark gloom as we listened to our first songster of the day: a mistle thrush singing from […]
Myself and nine others met in the pre dawn twilight outside Cliffe church. As we made our way down Pond Hill we were greeted by the pre-dawn songsters: wren, blackbird & robin which were soon joined by song thrush with its repeated phrases. A cuckoo called but was not seen in gloom and we continued […]
It is never easy to leave a comfortable bed at 4 o’clock in the morning to go on a dawn chorus walk, but myself and nine others stealed ourselves and were rewarded with a memorable start to the day. This year’s dawn chorus took place 3 weeks later in the season than that from last […]
Read the latest news on Lodge Hill here. If you want to get out and about to hear Nightingale song, try soon as once settled and nesting the males go quiet and get on with the busy task of rearing their young.
Our dawn chorus walk this year started from the Cliffe village car park one hour before sunrise and it was dark, very dark. Ten hardy souls had set alarm clocks early and as we walked out of the village and onto a dim Pickles Way the usual pre-dawn suspects were already singing: blackbird, wren and […]
The RSPB has been campaigning to stop a development of 5000 houses on Chattenden Woods and Lodge Hill SSSI. This ex-MOD training ground is home to a nationally important population of nightingales (possibly the most important site in the UK for this iconic and declining species), as well as ancient woodland and rare grassland. Last […]