Two owls, a stoat and the bitter cold
Elmley Marsh 01/03/20
On the 3rd of January 2020, my first day birding of the year, my dad and I travelled to Elmley Marsh on the Isle of Sheppey. The weather was bleak, but we went with the mission of finding a long-eared owl. We had heard about multiple sightings of owls the marsh, so decided to brave the weather to find this special bird.
On arriving at the reserve, we travelled along a narrow, open road shortly after coming off the M20. The parallel between the busy motorway and the eerily quiet marsh was striking. As an English literature student, Dickens' Great Expectations sprang to mind. However, we didn’t need to travel far to discover that this marsh was far from lifeless; as soon as the roar of traffic had faded, we were faced with a different kind of road traffic: sheep.
Slowing down to avoid colliding with these somewhat comical hazards, our attention turned to huge flocks of lapwings. At almost twenty, every time I watch these stunning birds I am taken back to being eight years old, standing in awe when I discovered a flock of lapwings in a field near my house - they were the most exotic looking birds I had ever seen at the time. If lapwings were a rare bird from overseas, twitchers would marvel as the oil-sheen iridescence of their wings for days. Peppered among the plovers was also a flock of curlew. Later in the day I was repeatedly fooled by the silhouette of a curlew against the grey skies; curlews in flight can look surprisingly like hen harriers (when you desperately want it to be a hen harrier).
At the end of the track we came to an old farmhouse, seemingly guarded by roughly 20 moorhens and the odd coot. Before coming to Elmley, we were made aware that the location of the long-eared owls was kept secret, to avoid their disturbance by overly-keen photographers. However, it became clear when we pulled into the car park and looked out onto the marsh, that the only trees in sight were surrounding the cars - there was only one area the owl could possibly be in. We scanned the tops of the trees for a large shape among the spindly willow branches, with no success.
And so, we set out onto the marsh. The first large flock of birds we came across comprised many water fowl: mallards, shelduck, gadwall, shoveler, and one of my favourite ducks, the wigeon. Each year I admire the beautiful plumage of the wigeon, but above all I adore the cacophony of whistling that, to me, signals the coming of winter months. Winter, despite the weather, is my favourite time of the year to go birding due to the large winter migrations. Swallows in summer and the blissful sound of skylarks in spring are wonderful, but nothing compares to braving the weather and being rewarded with ducks, geese, waxwings, divers and the flurry of fieldfare and redwings.
The Brutality of Nature
Whilst admiring the colourful array of ducks, I witnessed the most shocking, brutal, yet awe-inspiring event in the field that I’ve ever seen. The pleasant choir of whistles was overpowered by a horrendous screeching about ten feet behind us. As we turned around, we watched a rabbit running for its life with a stoat close behind it. I couldn’t help but feel frustrated, as the rabbit ran in circles rather than in the opposite direction, and the stoat took advantage of its rising panic. Then began the kill. I have watched footage of stoat attacks multiple times out of morbid curiosity, so I was expecting a swift yet fatal bite to the neck. I don’t know whether this particular stoat was an inexperienced youngster or simply an ineffective assassin, but it took the stoat ten minutes to kill the rabbit.
“Dead…up again! Ah, it really must be dead now. No wait, it’s still going!”
We watched the rabbit play dead multiple times and it occasionally succeeded in flipping the stoat, less than half its size, into the air. But this was to no avail and I finally watched the last ounce of fight burn out in the pitiful creature as it lay still beneath the stoat. I don’t think I could ever see such a vicious display of nature like that again if I tried. A minute either side of hearing the initial screech of the rabbit, and this fight for survival would've gone undetected.
By this point, it was getting very cold, so we decided to crack on to the first hide. On the way we watched at least ten marsh harriers scouring the landscape, a sight that my dad still revels in. Although I still love their majesty and size, marsh harriers have been common throughout the years I’ve been birding, so I can’t imagine the 50 year old excitement of those who remember their scarcity.
As we approached the hide, a peachy-breasted stonechat perched on a nearby fence post, but it was getting so cold that our attention was focused solely on getting out of the bitter wind. Once in the hide, we saw nothing except a solitary grey heron with its neck distended among the reeds. While attempting to warm up in the hide, I listed the species we had seen on my phone. We were up to twenty-six species of bird, two hares, a stoat and a rabbit (on both sides of the veil), so we set our goal to identify thirty species of bird before we went home.
Our Tufted Reward
On the way back our tally was increased to twenty-eight by a lesser black-backed gull and a humble wood pigeon, and my dad said to me “how cool would it be for the long-eared owl to take the 30th species spot?” The 29th spot was taken by a small gathering of blue tits in some bare scrub and I took a moment to admire how these tiny little birds survived in this weather, when I was at my limit whilst wearing numerous layers of clothing.
The increasingly negative focus on the cold was soon alleviated by the sight of a group of birdwatchers facing the trees at the entrance of the car park. Our hopes were confirmed when a fellow birder told us that there were two long-eared owls among the branches. There was an excitable murmuring of “between the fork of the trees… below the darker branch… no, above the reeds… yes that’s right - yep, yeah, it’s there…” And there they were.
(not my photo)
It took a while to spot the owls, but once I had they were unmistakable, with or without the use of binoculars. At first they were both faced away - I was informed that it didn’t move a great deal - but as I moved around, I was able to admire the whole length of these magnificent birds. They were bigger than I expected and lighter in colour too. One bird began to preen, stretch its wings and turn its face, displaying its signature tufts. Then, the moment I had hoped for. The long-eared owl slowly opened it dozing eyes revealing a striking flash of orange, which seemed even more vibrant when set against the bleak marsh.
The Importance of Our Birding Community
While getting a new tick on my list was wonderful, my favourite moment of the trip came shortly after spotting them. A lady approached our group, curious to see what we were fixating on. She didn’t have a pair of binoculars, but the kind warden found her a pair so she could find the owls. “Between the fork of the trees… below the darker branch… no, above the reeds… er, try standing here..” After a few minutes the new birder seemed discouraged having not spotted the owls and began to give up.
However there was an unspoken resolution amongst the group that the lady was not permitted to walk away until she had seen the birds. A photographer showed her a picture so she knew what she was looking for, and another birdwatcher handed her a better pair of binoculars. Finally, the lady exclaimed that she had spotted it and a relieved “hurrah!” echoed out onto the silent marsh.
The thrill of finding the bird that you've searched for after a long day is great, but the community of enthusiasts I’ve belonged to since seven years old really makes birdwatching special to me. We share the same passion for conservation and the same delight in others taking interest. The way in which the group banded together to help improve one person's experience reminded me of how, when I was a child, I was pushed to the front of hides and scopes by birders eager to get me involved in the hobby.
Eventually, I began to get so cold that my shaking hands could barely hold my binoculars to my face and my dad made the executive decision that I needed to get back into the car. Nonetheless, I was ecstatic - it was only the third day of the year and I had a new tick, and it was the 30th species we had identified at that.
Notably, this day out was the first I had after resolving to follow my childhood passion for nature writing. After going out on that birding trip, I can picture myself doing this for the rest of my life, and taking great pleasure in writing about it afterwards.