On the 19th of June, the ranger team took a trip to Elmley National Nature Reserve. We arrived at 9am and took a slow stroll to the old school house. Our goal….find the little owl. Our walk along the woodland trail picked up Chaffinch, a blue tit and a huge amount of meadow brown butterfly that erupted from a nearby flowering bramble bush as we walked past! When we arrived at the old school house we were beginning to lose hope of finding our owl. A 10-minute sweep of the buildings had picked up a jackdaw and behind us was just a reed bunting calling from the field. Suddenly, one of our rangers gasped in surprise as the little owl seemed to materialize in a nearby eldar. We watched the owl for a good 5 minutes as it preened and scanned its surroundings before we continued down to the old brickworks. 

All together we found 48 different species of birds, most of them being seen on the entrance track or around the brickworks. Our other highlights were a greenshank and bearded tits on the same pool, loads of avocets with young at the first hide, and a yellow wagtail!