With thanks to the lovely lady I met in a local hide who told me about this place. I can’t believe we have visited Rye on more than one occasion, but have never been aware of this massive nature reserve. Covering an enormous 1,150 acres, it comprises shingle, salt marsh, saline lagoons, coastal grazing marsh, freshwater gravel pits and reedbeds. It has been recognised as a Site of Special Scientific Interest, a Special Protection Area for birds under the EU Birds Directive, a Special Area of Conservation under the EU Habitats Directive and a Ramsar site that takes account of its importance as a wetland on an international scale. It was also voted Britain’s favourite nature reserve in 2016.
It has been on my to-do list for a few months now, but with the summer about to end, I chose the first warm, sunny day and asked a very dear friend if she wanted to tag along. We arrived around mid-day, having driven rather surprisingly through a large industrial area. There is plenty of free parking, but mention should be made of the donation box that allows it to remain that way.
The first thing that struck us was the sense of scale. I already knew the site has five hides and on such a flat area I assumed we would see them all from the entrance. I was wrong. In fact, it took a fair bit of walking to reach the information centre, where we stocked up on a map and several guides to the more common bird visitors and coastal flowers. The first hide was further up the same path and is by far the largest I have ever seen. There were plenty of birds in the distance, but the only one close enough for me to photograph was the curlew in the featured image above.
The next hide was a very long walk, so we stopped to have lunch on the way on one of the large benches scattered liberally around the site. Thankfully, not long after settling down in the Denny hide, we were joined by a knowledgeable gentleman who not only pointed out the birds, but identified them for us too. The first were these baby common terns on one of the closest islands.
Then he spotted a turnstone and I was lucky enough to get a couple of photographs over the next hour or so.
There was also a tiny sandpiper who sadly never really came close enough, but I was able to grab one shot as it wandered along the edge of the lake.
The highlight of our day came when he suddenly pointed to a more distant island where a cormorant had just landed with a massive eel. The ensuing battle lasted for several minutes and three times we thought the eel had escaped, only to be picked up once more. It was really too far, even for my little Powershot, but I carried on shooting and managed to get the images shown below. Quality isn’t the best, but the memories will stay with me for a very long time.
