Rye Harbour Nature Reserve : 25th June 2015

Rye Harbour Nature Reserve : 25th June 2015

After our visit to the Stodmarsh NNR, Sandwich and Deal we finished up at Rye Harbour Nature Reserve. The whole reserve is quite big so we concentrated more on the part that borders the sea and takes in the Ternary Pool which was our principle interest with Little Terns ours target species. Unfortunately we did not manage to see these birds which do breed here but we still had plenty of good birds so we were happy enough.

At first we were a little confused about where we needed to go but eventually we discovered that we didn’t want to be at the harbour end (near the pub) but rather just by the Rye Harbour Holiday Park ( 50.937101, 0.762347  ) where there is a public car park. We parked up here and walked down the path nearest the river as it leads out into the sea.

A little way down this path is Lime Kiln Cottage which is an information centre for the reserve. It was closed when we got there but there is a map of the site on a board there. A little further than this (at 50.932268, 0.768757 ) there is the Guy Crittall Hide where we stopped look over a scrape that was full of Black-headed Gulls and Herring Gulls but also held good numbers of Common Terns. There was a single Great Black-backed Gull and a few Redshank and a Ringed Plover. There were also a good number of Avocets as well as a single Shelduck and a LIttle Egret and a Curlew. Again we were a little short of time so we walked back to the car after a while and headed off to our hotel for the night hoping we could return some time over the next couple of days to try for the Little Terms again and to look at some of the other hides.

Bird Sightings : Rye Harbour Nature Reserve