Yesterday afternoon I found an hour to visit Dartford Marshes. I headed straight for the riverfront and as the tide was out, large numbers of gulls were present on the mud. Unfortunately, very shortly after my arrival a large ship passed along the river and its bow wave scared off most of the large gulls. Still, enough birds remained to make things a little interesting.

Huge numbers of Black-headed Gulls were present both on the mud and on the river and most of the large gulls proved to be adult Lesser Black-backed Gulls. A few immature Lesser Black-backed were also present along with an adult Herring Gull, a first winter Great Black-backed Gull and a rather sickly looking first winter Yellow legged Gull as well as good numbers of Common Gulls. A few waders were also feeding on the mud with around 150 Dunlin, 50-60 Redshank, about 40 Lapwings and 2 Black-tailed Godwits.

Scanning across the river I also picked up 7 Wigeon on the Crayford side of the Dartford Creek, a pair of Teal and about 7 Mallard on the Rainham side of the Thames. A couple of Reed Buntings were foraging in some weeds and a group of Linnets and a couple of Goldfinches flew overhead as I walked back to the car.

Of course a number of common species such as Magpie, Blackbird, Robin, Carrion Crow and Woodpigeon were also in the locality and small groups of Ring-necked Parakeets kept flying overhead on their way to their evening roost. Many of these parakeets were coming in from the Essex side of the river – a total of about 8 birds – heading for the roost at Foots Cray.

Not a bad hour’s birding and the Yellow-legged Gull was the final addition to my 2007 year list.

birds, birding